Arts & Entertainment

How do you know when an art gallery has catapulted into the art-world stratosphere? When collectors from Miami, New York, Los Angeles, and Paris quickly buy out its entire stock at a major art fair. That was exactly what happened to Spinello Projects at the Volta New York fair, where major collectors plunked down serious cash to pluck 25 of Farley Aguilar's atmospheric paintings off the Spinello booth walls within two hours of opening its doors, to the delight of Anthony Spinello and his rising art star. Spinello, who has experienced a meteoric rise since he became a dealer in 2005, heads one of only two local galleries invited to participate in Art Basel Miami Beach the past two years running. It's no accident. The dealer has demonstrated a keen eye for spotting talent and represents locals ready to burst onto the national stage, from Aguilar to Santiago Rubino, Sinisa Kukec, Agustina Woodgate, Typoe, Manny Preires, and Antonia Wright. The main reason: He inspires fierce loyalty. For Spinello, the program he runs is a passion. He can often be found at his artists' studios or his gallery working elbow-to-elbow with the talents on their projects. Spinello has become known not only for producing edgy, thought-provoking, and seamlessly organized exhibits, but also for assembling a stable that functions as a family network of supportive talent rather than a roster of individual egos. In a business known for ruthless competitiveness, that level of loyalty is an all too uncommon trait.

During the past five years, Jillian Mayer has catapulted to national prominence as an artist and filmmaker who creates uncanny works that employ a postmillennial techno approach while blurring identities and parsing pop cultural memes. She burst onto the scene with her 2010 Scenic Jogging, in which the artist raced after bucolic screen-saver images projected onto Wynwood warehouses. That piece later won the Guggenheim's YouTube Play biennial, where it earned Mayer raves. The next year, Mayer followed with I Am Your Grandma — a viral, deliciously creepy gem in which she sings as the bizarre granny of her future progeny; it has earned 2.6 million YouTube views and counting. She also released Giving Birth to Myself, which headlined her solo show "Family Matters" at the David Castillo Gallery with a disturbing meditation on maternity where the sweat-soaked talent re-emerges as a baby slathered in acid-green slime. In 2012, Mayer and frequent collaborator and founder of the Borscht Film Festival, Lucas Leyva, snagged national headlines after their film The Life and Freaky Times of Uncle Luke screened at Sundance and earned the duo inclusion in Filmmaker Magazine's "25 New Faces of Independent Film." Last year, Mayer's clever How to Hide From Cameras, a YouTube makeup tutorial on how to remain anonymous in an increasing surveillance state, was a finalist at the Museum of Contemporary Art's popular Optic Nerve video fest, while her film #PostModem, yet another collaboration with Leyva, screened at Sundance. These days, not only is Mayer riding a hot hand, but the wildly creative artist has also proven herself a chameleon-like changeling who's startlingly at ease with forever reinventing herself.

David Beckham is smitten with the idea of constructing a new Major League Soccer Stadium at PortMiami and calls the site perfect because it reflects a city that "is all about the water, all about the culture." Becks is right. For evidence, simply visit the planet's most popular port to discover Coral Reef City, Bhakti Baxter's first large-scale public artwork in Miami. For his eye-popping project, part of Miami-Dade County's Art in Public Places program, the homegrown artist created site-specific designs for the port's toll collection booths that reference the site's unique role as gateway to the tropics. Baxter collaborated with Coral Morphologic, a Miami-based scientific art endeavor led by marine biologist Colin Foord and musician Jared McKay to create the 18 unique designs that wrap each individual toll booth. Each delivers a stunning vision of our vibrant local sea life. To accomplish the feat, Baxter and his collaborators enlarged macro photographs of corals that inhabit the waters in and around Miami, creating a striking synergy between nature and art that captures our town's appeal as a pulsating paradise. The resulting explosion of the brilliant, rainbow-hued colors of the soft corals (technically known as zoanthids) delights not only the likes of Beckham and the millions of other visitors passing through on cruise ships, but also locals, who rarely get a chance to behold the mystery and beauty of the creatures populating our coastline.

Wynwood may be the heart of a growing global graffiti movement, but some of its murals are surprisingly soulless. Whether they depict a cool-ass dragon perched atop a mountain peak or cartoon characters committing acts of violence, many are brilliantly drawn but little more, like flashy wallpaper for warehouses. Few of the works strive to stir something inside passersby. On the southwest corner of NW Third Avenue and 27th Street, towering gold letters spell "I remember paradise" against a rainbow background. The mural, by Londoner Lakwena Maciver, is meant to invoke human longing for a lost era. "We all have this sense that there is something wrong with the world but that once there was something perfect," Maciver told New Times. It's a beautiful painting, and one that has formed the backdrop for Beyoncé Instagrams and glossy magazine spreads. But it's actually the mural cater-cornered that makes us nostalgic. There, a heavily tattooed man holds a gorgeous woman in a tender embrace. A shuttered doorway is transformed into a birdcage. The mural, by Peruvian duo Entes y Pésimo (Beings & Dreadful), perfectly captures modern-day Miami: young, Hispanic, interracial, part tattooed thug, part tender romantic. The man's face is pensive, his stance protective. The woman, unashamedly in love, stares straight out at you. How wonderfully disarming to walk through Wynwood on a weekend night, past posturing dudes and pretending chicks, and stumble upon such intimacy.

The eyes of Miami are stoned on Elmer's and see everything. The sleepy sentinels keep watch over Wynwood at NW 27th Street, make their mark on the Margulies Collection facing I-95, boldly impress passersby on Biscayne Boulevard, and peer down from above the kitchen at the bayside Standard Hotel. Whatever their location or color scheme, they are stacked by the dozens, sometimes even hundreds, and leave an impression whether or not you know the name of the man who wields the can that created the memorable work. The ignorance stops here, because the local artist deserves your recognition. "AholSniffsGlue" is not only the funniest street artist name in town, but it also gets to the heart of the whole droopy-lidded genius of his best-known trademark. But lazy eyes aren't all he draws. He's had solo exhibits of his multimedia artwork at Gregg Shienbaum and Mercenary Square and has been part of group affairs at Scope and Wynwood Art Fair. But it's the half-mast eyes that are his calling card and most notable addition to the Miami street art scene. Next time you see them, call it out: "AholSniffsGlue!" You'll look cool in front of your friends.

At the end of the 19th Century, a swarm of locusts ravaged South Africa, wiping out croplands and forcing local tribesmen to seek work in the recently discovered gold and diamond mines. For his first major project in Miami, South African sculptor Nicholas Hlobo, who is known for his sprawling, room-engulfing installations, used the colonial-era disaster that decimated a way of life as the inspiration behind a sweeping, experimental opera sketch called "Intethe," which translates to "locust" in the language of the Xhosa people from his native land and also references the gallery's name. At Locust, Hlobo deftly channeled the ghosts of colonialism with a haunting collection of eight monumental steel sculptures swaddled in mantles confected from truck tire inner tubes and swathes of lace. Bristling air valve nozzles and rainbow-hued ribbons also added to the baleful nature of the works. Hlobo collaborated with local Haitian musicians Papaloko and Loray Mistik during the opening performance to underscore notions of shared identity throughout the global African diaspora as part of the edgy work. Also referencing issues of racial, sexual, and gender identity, the powerful exhibit projected subtitles in the Xhosa language onto the mystifying stage Hlobo had set, while white-clad musicians summoned the spirits of their ancestors through ritual drum beats and bellowing conch shell blasts. Visitors to Locust were also treated to the spectacle of Over and Under, a massive hand-loomed expanse of canvas, spilling from a floor-to-ceiling scaffold created by homegrown talent Frances Trombly in the gallery's project room. The results of Locust's striking Art Basel offering made for an eclectic showcase that became laser-engraved on Miami's collective memory.

Ever since Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) joined the nascent arts community blooming near Biscayne Bay, the area has rapidly become a favorite among local arts lovers eager to experience a more laid-back art walk than the boisterous Second Saturday version that transforms Wynwood into a jam-packed spectacle a few miles away. From PAMM's home off the MacArthur Causeway to Flagler Street on the south end, downtown Miami is home to some of South Florida's cultural heavy hitters, including the MDC Museum of Art + Design, CIFO, and Cannonball, plus a tightly knit cadre of artist-run spaces and a growing gallery scene. At the DWNTWN Arts House, some of the Magic City's venerable alt spaces, such as Dimensions Variable and Bas Fisher Invitational, hold sway in the 20,000-square-foot creative depot that also houses the TM Sisters' studio and Turn-Based Press. Just a few blocks south, Primary Projects offers some of the region's edgiest programming at its new space, while the Aluna Art Foundation on West Flagler Street and HistoryMiami offer a raft of equally intriguing exhibits at the area's southernmost fringe. There's plenty of parking and easily accessible public transportation, including the free Metromover, while watering holes and eateries such as the DRB, the Corner, and Will Call provide the grub and spirits without visitors having to queue up at a food truck rodeo to fill the gullet after feeding the soul. Check it out beginning at 6 p.m. every first Friday of the month.

Between the usual Art Basel madness and the gala opening of Pérez Art Museum Miami, the Magic City enjoyed more than its fair share of fantastic exhibits in 2013. Only one, however, featured Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage dressed in drag portraying a 17th-century German dwarf. That honor goes to Eve Sussman's "Rufus Corporation," a blockbuster at the Bass Museum that not only reaffirmed Sussman as one of the most important contemporary artists working today but also marked the museum's growing profile on the local scene. The stellar exhibit boasted a series of films, photos, installations, and videos, including the star turn by Dinklage. Sussman cast him in her 89 Seconds at Alcázar, a 12-minute film that garnered international attention when it debuted at the 2004 Whitney Biennial. Dinklage took the part — as Mari Barbola, a German dwarf made famous in Diego Velázquez's enigmatic opus Las Meninas, a scene from the Spanish court of King Philip IV in 1656 — before he catapulted to Hollywood fame. The movie re-envisioned what transpired among the Spanish royal family, their servants, a dog, and the painter at their summer palace more than 350 years ago, transporting Bass visitors to an opulent age. But for all of Dinklage's star power, the show stealer was Sussman's feature-length video-musical The Rape of the Sabine Women, which reinterpreted the founding of Rome in an unforgettable way. Originally shot for the big screen, the 80-minute movie was transformed by Sussman into a five-part installation that turned spectators into actors in an epic production. Sussman presented the haunting imagery shot in the Mediterranean with modern actors on 30 screens, including sprawling wall projections; a stand-alone, house-like construction near the rear of the museum; several postcard-size video monitors; and a massive installation of TV sets piled randomly on the floor, reminiscent of a technological junkyard.

Let's face it: Baselites are damn hard to impress. Each year, the jaded international art-world cognoscenti flock to the 305 for Art Basel, an aesthetic winter bacchanalia where the latest contemporary trends and talent compete for attention with the über-exclusive VIP list for over-the-top private soirees. But in December 2013, for once that wasn't the case. That's because everyone from locals to the visiting glitterati were all left agog by the new Pérez Art Museum Miami. When PAMM opened on Biscayne Bay with a raft of blockbuster exhibits, including a survey of Chinese star Ai Weiwei, it was the 21st-century museum's stunning building that left tongues wagging. Designed by award-winning Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron, the stunning cultural showcase was inspired by "Stiltsville," the tiny village of shacks rising from Biscayne Bay. The result is a bleeding-edge shrine to PAMM's growing collection that anchors the east end of the 29-acre Museum Park. The site will also be the home of the nearby Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum of Science, designed by Grimshaw Architects and scheduled to open in 2015. From the moment visitors enter PAMM — which boasts 200,000 square feet of space — they're left with the sensation they've stepped into a sculptural artwork. Outside, hanging gardens tower 60 feet overhead beside views of the water and Miami's skyline shimmering in the languid breeze. Destined to remain the Magic City's creative hub for years to come, the museum has already made an impact through its series PAMM Presents, taking place every third Thursday, when it delivers internationally acclaimed talent and performers for an eclectic range of dance music and experimental sounds on the bay.

Yeah, we know Miami is the only urban metropolis wedged next to two national parks (that's Biscayne and the Everglades, you rube). But that doesn't mean it's easy to find a jewel of urban quietude amid that concrete jungle. That's why Vizcaya is such a miracle in the Magic City. Nested in the heart of Coconut Grove, the estate was built by agricultural magnate James Deering in the years after World War I and modeled on an Italian Renaissance villa. Elaborate gardens spill through mangroves to the edge of Biscayne Bay, while the house itself is a stunning faux-European masterpiece. Yet the place exudes pure Miami charm, from the local limestone and native subtropical foliage to the regular stream of weekend quinceañera photo shoots along the water's edge. Next time your urban fervor spikes, there's no need to flee an hour and a half into the midst of the Glades — simply head to the mystical respite in downtown Miami's backyard.

For a perfect ensemble cast, actors' responsibilities are twofold: They each have to create a character that is distinct and three-dimensional, and they have to collaborate to create a fictional world that is, in most cases, as plausible as the one beyond the proscenium. If there's one bit of miscasting, the audience becomes conscious of a "performance" — and then the simulacrum crumbles. This was never the case in the Alliance Theatre Lab's unforgettable Savage in Limbo, in which director Adalberto Acevedo's five actors played together with the harmonic richness of a musical quintet with decades of experience. The setting was a broken-down bar where a handful of broken-down lives converged. These desperate, frantic, rootless barflies included Shira Abergel's 32-year-old virgin, Valentina Izarra's hooker-attired sparkplug, Curtis Belz's romantically scattered lunkhead, and Breeza Zeller's professional drunk, slumped in melancholy perpetuity over the bar. Christian Vandepas' barkeep presided over this carnival of lost souls with weary disillusionment while clinging onto a thread of hope that quietly unfurled. Collectively, these actors formed the emotional nucleus of a place in which no one ever wants to wind up, but it must have struck many viewers as painfully familiar.

A year ago, Erin Joy Schmidt took home New Times' honors for Best Actress thanks to her searing, tear-stained portrayal of an author learning a life-altering secret in Actors' Playhouse's Other Desert Cities. This year, she's won Best Supporting Actress thanks to her latest tear-jerking part — only this time the waterworks are the audience's alone, and they're born of comedy, not tragedy. Schmidt's presence contributed to the finest live-theater entries of Mad Cat Theatre Company's Mixtape 2: Ummagumma Forza Zuma!, "a typically eccentric compilation of playlets, poems, short films, and music videos at Miami Theater Center. It was a showcase for her range, which encompassed everything from a confused focus group participant who acquiesces to the demands of a convincing controller (in Blind?) to one of four siblings grieving for their dying mother in the precise and cerebrally moving Unearthed. But her piece de resistance was in Theo Reyna's The Scottish Play, a geopolitical satire in which her character stood in for the country of Scotland. Employing a deliberately overwrought, scarily committed Scottish accent that bordered on parody without ever succumbing to it, her work in The Scottish Play was funnier than anything she's ever done. And like a true pro, she played every ridiculous line as if her life and, of course, her national sovereignty depended upon it.

There is no such thing as a "typical" Karen Stephens part. Like the best actors anywhere, she's an invisible conduit for a playwright's unique creation, which, paradoxically, we cannot imagine existing without her. Thus, if Christopher Demos-Brown's world-premiere play Fear Up Harsh, which debuted in Miami courtesy of Zoetic Stage, receives productions elsewhere, Stephens' masterly lead performance sets a seemingly untouchable benchmark. Her lesbian army corporal — physically and emotionally bruised, desperate, and probably alcoholic — is as convincing a portrayal of a military veteran as we've seen onstage, with Stephens infusing her character's tortured memories and wry wit with lived-in intelligence. A few months later, she flawlessly inhabited another complex character — a brash, funny, Southern-bred maid with a heavenly secret — in GableStage's The Mountaintop. That secret torpedoed an otherwise provocative piece, but Stephens remained truthful even during its descent, culminating in a powerful soliloquy encompassing the past 40 years of African-American history that ebbed and flowed with the oratorical gusto of The Mountaintop's immortal subject, Martin Luther King Jr.

Once viewed as a construction-delayed, $51 million albatross, the South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center (SMDCAC) has already done plenty since it's 2011 grand opening to prove its worth to taxpayers. It has delivered a winning combination of jazz, classical, and dance shows with a heavy emphasis on Latin American and Caribbean troupes. But no one could have predicted that one of its greatest contributions to Miami's arts scenes would be providing an itinerant theater a permanent home. That's just what happened, though, after the rightly acclaimed New Theatre lost its longtime space in Coral Gables and then bounced around a few other locations before landing at SMDCAC. Their combination has been the Jay Z/Beyoncé hookup of the South Florida arts world — a powerhouse arts marriage made in heaven. New Theatre's premiere in-house production, Visiting Hours, told the story of an older lesbian couple and their estranged son, who barges back into their lives following charges of aggravated assault. Written by frequent New Theatre collaborator and Miami native David Caudle, the work gave the company a refreshing and memorable new start. Weaving innovative pieces from New Theatre into a season filled with crowd-pleasing events — the Miami Symphony Orchestra, jazz singer René Marie, and flamenco star Jesse Cook, to name a few — has solidified the South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center as an exciting and worthy enhancement to Miami's theatrical stage.

The touring production of Elf didn't make its way to Miami until December 31 — after many Christmas enthusiasts had already pulled the lights off their palm trees and bundled away the inflatable lawn snow globes for another year. But that doesn't mean the Christmas spirit didn't live strong at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. In fact, when it comes to eternal holiday cheer, Elf probably gave the year-round local favorite Christmas Palace a run for its money. The production, based on the instant classic starring Will Ferrell and Zooey Deschanel, brings the film to even grander and sillier heights by not only keeping all the fan favorite lines and scenes but also adding infectious songs, even more heart, and so much holiday fun that Santa might OD on cheer. Even better, Elf delivered snow to Miami, dusting the stage with the kind of white stuff that's all too rare in the 305. By the musical's end, you'd be hard-pressed not to agree with Buddy the Elf when he proclaims, "Smiling's my favorite!"

It's worth remembering that before John Wilkes Booth became the first successful presidential assassin, he was a Shakespearean actor, and apparently a damn good one. Early reviews of his plays referred to his "natural genius" and his status as "the most promising young actor on the American stage." So it takes an equally brilliant actor to bring this fascinating monster to life, to convey both his misguided sense of vengeance and his imposing theatricality — his demons and his dramaturgy alike. In this regard, Nicholas Richberg exceeded all expectations in his embodiment of Booth, one of a number of presidential killers explored in Stephen Sondheim's offbeat musical Assassins, from Zoetic Stage. Resembling the real Booth with frightening attention to detail in hair, makeup, and costuming, Richberg anchored a show that is, by its nature, all over the place — providing, in the character of this talented racist, its panache and its fire and even its soul. Barbara Bradshaw, a former New Times Best Actress winner, recently told a reporter that even if she were playing the biggest villain in a show, she needed to play her with the knowledge that she didn't know she was a villain. This was certainly the case with Richberg's Booth, who achieved the unlikely feat of making us genuinely care about the man who murdered our greatest president.

Most critics agreed that Metamorphoses — the Adrienne Arsht Center and University of Miami Theater Department's ambitious adaptation of Mary Zimmerman's version of Ovid's Roman myths — was not a great success. But the effect of its uneven pacing and wildly disparate cast of students and professionals ensured that one performance stood out all the more glaringly from the rest, for all the right reasons. Ethan Henry almost single-handedly brought the cerebral script and ancient source material to vivid life, inhabiting its most difficult and iconic characters. His interpretation of Midas as an arrogant one-percenter who learns humility the hard way was powerful enough, but nothing could prepare audiences for his role in the Cinyras myth, in which his lecherous character engaged in a blindfolded sexual tryst with a nubile girl who turned out to be his daughter. The incestuous liaison took place in a pool, with Henry and Alanna Saunders swirling and tumbling on the water's surface in shameful ecstasy. The moment when the blindfold came off, and Henry's carnal bliss metamorphosed into the agony of irredeemable despair, was as masterful a transition from one extreme to another as any that graced a stage in recent memory. Let's hope the UM students populating at least half of this production were taking copious mental notes.

A lot of theater companies and movie producers do the whole "Shakespeare as you've never seen him before" thing, which usually involves staging the Bard's words inside a McDonald's, on the front lines of a Middle Eastern war, or in outer space. But Miami native Tarell Alvin McCraney's eccentric and visionary adaptation of Antony and Cleopatra never relied on such gimmicks. It employed the abstract sets and spartan style of his previous work at Gable­Stage (like The Brothers Size and his ratatat Hamlet) to somehow evoke both 18th-century Haiti and ancient Rome/Alexandria, creating a cross-cultural hybrid that respected the original source material while enriching it with subtextual meaning. The props and live, balcony-perched band created Afro-Caribbean ambiance that drifted in and out of Shakespeare's fraught and complicated text, uttered by its spectacular cast with the mix of frothing passion and enviable, roll-off-the-tongue nonchalance that any modern Shakespeare interpretation could hope for. Yes, not every actor enunciated clearly enough for every line to be heard within the Colony Theatre's imperfect acoustics, but be honest: Unless you're a Shakespeare scholar, you wouldn't be able to decipher it all anyway. The grandiosity and chutzpah of this cinematic vision more than made up for any minutiae that might have slipped through the cracks.

Michael McKeever's set for Zoetic Stage's Assassins must have been a fun place to show up to work for its cast of ten. After all, it's not often you get to spend a couple of hours a night playing around and firing blanks into a multitiered carnival booth, not to mention exhaling your last breath while collapsing onto a flawless replica of the official presidential seal of the United States. With its mix of jingoistic colors and iconography and its peeling wooden marquee reading "Take Your Shot," McKeever's set resembled both Coney Island parlor games and White House pomp and circumstance — finding a visual representation of the nexus of the assassins' low-rent delusions and their unseen victims' patriotic grandeur. It was also a fount of hidden pleasures, from the centrally positioned, rotating presidential portrait to the red-and-blue police sirens tucked away in crates to the noose atop the stairway, which helped create one of the show's funniest visual gags. This might sound like a dubious honor for McKeever, but the fact is, if anyone had the choice to die on any set, it would be this one.

The Actors' Playhouse's End of the Rainbow was a funny and heartbreaking antidote to the stale formula of the Judy Garland musical revue. Moreover, it satisfied criteria for both best play and best musical of the year, encompassing the crackling dramatic exigencies of the former and the seemingly unpredictable cabaret atmosphere of the latter. Mostly, though, it was a bold look at faded glory — that of Garland, once the biggest star in the world, reduced at the end of her truncated life to insecure pill fiend, alcoholic, rotten friend, and erratic, occasional nightclub singer, when she wasn't too doped up to put one foot in front of the other. The perfectly diminutive Kathy St. George captured Garland's charms as well as her demons, and Colin McPhillamy exuded initial warmth and finally tragic pathos as her longtime pianist, a loving man ultimately crushed by the oblivious Garland steamroller. Director David Arisco handled the shifting genres with ease, especially the play's transitions from hotel room to nightclub — complete with a live onstage band — which never ceased to dazzle.

Zoetic Stage has been producing fine work since its inception in 2010, but this past season was the one in which the company really came into its own, establishing itself as a powerhouse incubator of new plays and an accomplished interpreter of canonical classics. The antiwar dramedy Fear Up Harsh opened the season with a proverbial mortar blast of energy, wit, and insight, earning a pair of Carbonell Awards in its wake, including Best New Work for playwright Christopher Demos-Brown. Its followup, Assassins, likewise plumbed comedy from dark scenarios. A standout cast, a spare-no-expense set design, and dynamite costumes brought to life the black humor, complex musicality, and blistering monologues of one of Stephen Sondheim's most controversial musicals. The season continued with one of Michael McKeever's finest comedies, Clark Gable Slept Here, a world-premiere satire about Hollywood that explored the movie industry's myth-making at the expense of its humanity — if such a thing can exist in the plastic Dream Factory. Producing only four shows in its season (The Great God Pan opened after this writing), compared with other companies' five or six, Zoetic had fewer chances to stumble, but the flawlessness of its track record remains impressive and sets an intimidating bar for next year.

Few works, new or established, were as instantly visionary as Christopher Demos-Brown's Fear Up Harsh. The play, which premiered in an acclaimed production at Zoetic Stage, opened on a delirious gamble, in which the carnage of a war zone played in complete blackness, its actions bleeding into the next scene in a traumatic, time-shifting cacophony. The effect was dizzying and whiplash-inducing but never less than compelling, and it set the stage for a Brechtian exercise in the lingering effects of war (and awards) that deservedly won the Best New Work statuette at the 2013 Carbonell Awards. The hierarchies of rank, the politics of medals, the shameful horror of "enhanced interrogation techniques," and the struggles of being a single dad who is also a wheelchair-bound veteran coalesced into a 21st-century American tragedy that was also, when it wanted to be, one of the funniest plays of the year. Demos-Brown's knack for finding believably comic conversational nooks within a more damning, bigger picture cannot be understated; though, as he has said, some of the play's best lines developed from working out the production organically with his cast. Whatever the formula, it played out magnificently on the Arsht Center stage.

John Wynn grew up in Texas, where his brown skin and dark locks led many to mistake him for a Mexican. When he moved to Miami a few years ago, people suddenly decided he was Peruvian. He's actually Vietnamese, but lucky for us, all those years of racial profiling have provided him with a lifetime of laugh-out-loud situations to recount. In 2012, Wynn debuted his comedic web series, Labor Days, which features South Florida's most hilarious funnymen (Daniel Reskin, Lisa Carrao, Orlando Leyba, and others); its premise: Wynn (who plays himself) is mistaken for a Mexican day laborer in a Home Depot parking lot and, after losing his job, is desperate for below-minimum-wage work. In real life, Wynn was laid off as a professor just before his wife gave birth to his now-2-year-old daughter and currently teaches cinematography and editing as an adjunct professor at three schools. Season two of Labor Days is slated to air online in August. And when Wynn isn't shuffling between work and shows, you can find him pretty consistently on the first and third Tuesday of the month at Elwoods Gastro Pub downtown for comedy night.

Pussila's trademark makeup paints a pretty good picture of her onstage personality. Her distinctive eye makeup resembles the wings of a demonic butterfly. It wouldn't look out of place at a Marilyn Manson concert. Her cherry painted lips, almost always arranged in a wide smile, tell a different story. In truth she's equal parts sweet and sour. Whether onstage as MC at Twist's stripper hut or roaming the bar at Mova, she's quick to deliver a cutting remark, but it's always delivered with a laugh and a grin. Her wardrobe can be equally sassy. Sometimes she'll don a bra fashioned into two tip cups. As we all know, a drag queen's bra can never be overstuffed, so don't be afraid to tip this Colombian-born drag veteran next time you see her out.

Since 1923, Ice Palace Film Studios has stood on the corner of North Miami Avenue and NW 14th Street, its white fortress-like walls surrounded by a manicured garden ideal for lounging. Given that unique vibe, it's no shock the space has served as everything from the home of Pulse Art Fair during the week of Art Basel Miami Beach to a makeshift nightclub for Deadmau5's free show and events during Winter Music Conference. Because the immense space is flexible enough to fit almost any kind of request, it's also used frequently for film production and commercial photo shoots. In fact, it features 85,000 square feet of interior space — including the West Building, the former home of Karu & Y — and 58,000 square feet of garden area. The stripped-down interior means it can be decorated in any fashion imaginable. In fact, the most impressive transformation occurred in 2008, when Stoli created a faux hotel where invited guests could sip free cocktails and enjoy an array of live performances and DJ sets. Booking Ice Palace costs most than renting a Hialeah banquet hall, but when you don't want your vision compromised and you need space for a couple thousand people, it's money well spent.

For film worshippers, movie theaters are the temple where an escape to a higher plane begins. Usually, it's the cinema that transports viewers to endless faraway realms, but what if the theater itself also did some of the heavy lifting? Thanks to one Austin, Texas man determined to revive a forgotten art in Miami, that's exactly what a new mini drive-in theater does. The Blue Starlite Mini Urban Drive-In, which opened in summer 2013, became a darling of the Wynwood neighborhood. Don't expect to drive up and see the latest blockbuster, though, because the Blue Starlite plays only movies of yesteryear — "indie films, art house, cult, Gen X/Y, childhood favorites, and drive-in classics," to be exact. Expect to see classic films such as Casablanca, The Blob, The Princess Bride, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and perhaps the occasional movie released in the past decade. After only a few short months, the theater expanded to Virginia Key Beach, where moviegoers can enjoy classic flicks under the twinkling stars while cuddled up with their honeys on a sandy beach during fall and spring. And now the Blue Starlite has moved from Wynwood to a new location behind the Coconut Grove Playhouse, which is slated to open this July. The drive-in charges per car and per person in each car, but oftentimes you can get a deal for $30 that includes entry for one car slot, two people, and popcorn. Whether you go for the classic films or the outdoor ambiance, a trip to the drive-in is always a perfect way to spend a few hours away from the real world.

In August 2013, Calle Ocho's landmark movie theater closed for renovation. It finally reopened this past March, illuminating the neighborhood with its iconic marquee once again. Thank the cinematic gods! Because before the current art-house cinema craze, Tower was one of the first to bring foreign and independent cinema to the Magic City. It originally opened in 1926 as a state-of-the-art theater. In the '60s, it helped newly arrived Cuban refugees acclimate to American culture by screening English-language films with Spanish subtitles. Now, under the auspices of Miami Dade College, it continues to educate the public through a cultural exchange of thought and creativity on celluloid. You won't find any blockbusters here, but you have plenty of other options. Instead, for a $10 ticket you can watch some of the most underrated, obscure, and, yes, occasionally infuriatingly slow-paced works from across the globe. Unlike most of our local art-house theaters, Tower features two viewing rooms, for twice the cinematic fun. And along with Miami's other art-house film havens, it's proving that films can still entertain and move audiences without the help of IMAX screens and 3-D technology.

Tony Stark had been rattled to his core. The brilliant inventor, playboy, and superhero was already suffering a righteous PTSD meltdown from the carnage that invading aliens had wrought on New York City, when a mysterious figure called the Mandarin began blowing up buildings left and right. So Stark — never lacking confidence — took to television to call out the mysterious figure, promise revenge, and even offer his home address. He didn't expect what came next: a full-out assault by armored helicopters that sent his high-tech home plunging into the ocean and nearly killed the guy everyone knows best as Iron Man. But Stark survived, and by following a series of clues, he pieced together the Mandarin's true identity and traced him to his secret lair. As Stark jetted across the water and swooped in for a final showdown, the camera zoomed in on the palatial retreat, and... wait a second. Is that Vizcaya? Yes, indeed. Miami residents could have saved the star of Iron Man 3, played by Robert Downey Jr., weeks of agony and billions in expense by pointing him toward the Mandarin's hideout, which — at least on film — is among the Magic City's most famed locales. But damned if it didn't make a great backdrop for a knockdown brawl between Stark and his nemesis, played by the legendary Ben Kingsley. Beyond all the onscreen glory, the blockbuster reportedly pumped $15 million in revenue into Miami's film industry during filming, with Vizcaya nabbing $100,000 in revenue and location fees. Any other cyborg heroes and villains want to come blow up the Magic City?

There are so many ways to get burned in Miami: by the sun, tacky tourist shops, sketchy drug deals. But what if you're a spy? Just ask Michael Westen. He was one of the best in the business before a mysterious enemy had him burned. In spy terminology, that means he became untouchable — as Westen himself put it at the beginning of every episode of his hit show Burn Notice: "When you're burned, you've got nothing: no cash, no credit, no job history. You're stuck in whatever city they decide to dump you in." Luckily for Westen — and Miamians — he is shunned in the sunniest place imaginable: South Beach. For six years and seven seasons, Burn Notice's star character, played by Jeffrey Donovan, fought to regain his lost life while helping regular Miami joes with their own high-octane problems. It was a playful, action-packed show, sometimes silly but always entertaining. Between Westen's party-life best friend, played by Bruce Campbell, and all the beautiful beach babes, there was something for everyone: romance, action, comedy, heart-warming family moments. And best of all, unlike so many other SoBe imitators, from CSI: Miami to Dexter, the entire series was actually filmed right here in South Florida, based out of the old convention center space near Dinner Key. The hit show, which aired in more than 60 countries, wrapped for good last September. Did Westen ever get his revenge or his life back? You'll just have to tune in to reruns find out.

Perhaps you woke up every morning this winter and glanced out the window at the robin's-egg-blue skies, relished the mid-60s temperatures, and profusely thanked your preferred deity that you found a way to call South Florida home. But in case your personal comfort and sanity weren't reason enough to thank the Miami weather gods, they've given residents another invaluable gift: NBC 6 news anchor Trina Robinson. Robinson is as talented as they come, with a background in investigative reporting, anchoring, and meteorology; a pitch-perfect deep voice; and a charismatic on-air presence. But if it weren't for those sunny winter mornings, she'd probably be plying her trade up North somewhere. "Mostly the weather" keeps her in town, Robinson told New Times last year. "You can be outside every day; you don't have to worry about snow — I have a total aversion to snow." Robinson's reporting has garnered multiple Emmys, and she's been in front of several big news stories in recent years, including breaking pieces about a ring illegally injecting deadly silicone mixtures into transgender women. Crack open your windows, catch that sea breeze, and tune in to NBC 6. We're a lucky town.

If Ron Burgundy had an Argentine uncle, his name would be Guillermo Benites. For more than 34 years, the Buenos Aires native has anchored the 6 p.m. news for Univision's flagship Miami station. With his deadpan baritone and stoic demeanor, Benites has held the attention of Miami's Spanish-speaking viewers through some of the city's most historic moments — from Pope John Paul II's ride in 1987 to the Elián González saga in 2000 to the recent acquittal of former Hialeah mayor Julio Robaina and his wife on tax evasion charges. Benites moved to Miami in 1968 and began an illustrious radio career that lasted into the early 1980s before he left the airwaves to help launch Univision, where he has worked as a meteorologist and senior news anchor. Benites has been recognized with a lifetime achievement award by the Suncoast Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and has nabbed awards from dozens of cities and counties in South Florida for his long journalism career. Stay classy, Guillermo!

No one goes willingly to the ninth floor of the Miami-Dade jail. In a decaying, overheated building full of criminals of every stripe passing the hours until their day in court, the ninth floor is different. That's where the mentally ill, the disturbed, and the destitute who desperately need psychiatric attention (which they'll probably never get) are sent to suffer away from the public eye. They're put there so residents can ignore them. That's why it's called "the forgotten floor," a place most Miamians would be happy to pretend doesn't exist. Not Michele Gillen. Last summer, she spent days on the ninth floor hearing firsthand the stories of the men and women trapped in Miami-Dade County's labyrinthine mental health limbo. Her investigative piece, aptly titled "The Forgotten Floor," is exactly the kind of boundary-pushing broadcast journalism that has made Gillen among the most decorated reporters in Miami history. Gillen first made her mark on the national stage while reporting for Dateline, Exposé, and NBC Nightly News — where one in-depth piece sparked new federal legislation on mammography equipment — before moving on to local work in Los Angeles and finally Miami's CBS 4. Gillen has earned a closetful of prizes, including Emmys, Green Eyeshades, and an Edward R. Murrow Award for investigative reporting. Today, she's still at the frontline of Miami's investigative corps, using her cameras to shine a light on the darkest places in Dade County.

What do Hurricanes Andrew, Irene, and Wilma have in common? Other than the billions of dollars in property damage, the terrifying hours of pelting wind and rain, and the weeks of misery for millions of South Floridians, there's one other thread linking the meteorological monstrosities: John Morales. In a transitional city where the constants are few, Morales is a rare bedrock in the media landscape, a topnotch, cool-as-cucumber presence at the weather desk. And he's hardly resting on his forecasting laurels — Morales is one of the most decorated weathermen in the nation. Raised in Puerto Rico and educated at Cornell, Morales joined Univision and its local affiliate, WLTV, in 1991, moved to Telemundo in 2003, and joined NBC 6 in 2009. In between, he's found time to author or co-author two books, advise Al Gore on global warming trends, and become the first Hispanic to appear as the Today Show's meteorologist. He has also won three Emmys, and in his free time he teaches at St. Thomas University and pilots airplanes. In other words, he's exactly the guy you want in your neck of the woods, glued to a weather computer when the next tropical wave whips off the coast of Africa and churns toward hurricane strength in the Caribbean.

It doesn't matter how many points LeBron, D-Wade, and Chris Bosh score. For true Heat fans, the game-time action doesn't feel real without a blow-by-blow description from Eric Reid. Going on his 26th season with the Heat, the sportscaster has been with the NBA champs so long he was once calling out Rony Seikaly dunks. In all, he's covered 1,865 regular-season games. Reid — who earned his chops at Ithaca College while working as an analyst and play-by-play announcer for Cornell University's basketball team — started as the Heat's color analyst in 1988 and, after three seasons, took on the role of play-by-play for radio and television. After he was bumped up as Miami's play-by-play guy in 1991, he became puro Heat. Today, Reid is synonymous with the team — he's one of eight original Miami Heat employees still cashing Mickey Arison checks every month. Known for his enthusiastic interjections of "kaboom," spontaneous plays on names — such as "Udonis, you did it" and "Chris Ka-Bosh" — and appearances as host on Inside the Heat, he won a 2013 Emmy for best play-by-play announcer. Though LeBron has racked up a slew of MVP awards, for many citizens of the Heat Nation, Reid is the heart and soul of this franchise. No matter how many trophies Miami brings to the AAA, the Heat wouldn't be the Heat without Reid calling the action.

Ever get a bad case of radio déjà vu? In Miami, it's an all-too-common condition, brought on by suffering through the same three songs ad nauseam until they are replaced by a different rotation of similar-sounding pop tracks until you feel like you've fallen down a Lady Gaga spiral of insanity. Do not panic. Science has a cure, and it's found on the University of Miami's college radio station, WVUM. The Warp Zone With Jackson Alexander Parodi plays only videogame music, and though that might sound like a premise with a serious and insurmountable limitation, it's really a gateway to a completely different — and often downright amazing — realm of music. The show is a sweet mix of nostalgia, orchestral jams, and intelligent dance music, and even though The Warp Zone doesn't play proper rock, it presents many opportunities to rock out in your car. When your trip's soundtrack comes from Zelda's Hyrule Kingdom, it's easy to forget you're traveling in the mundane real world. Ever speed down the Palmetto while listening to music from Mario Kart? You won't have a care in the world. (But maybe watch out for banana peels.)

Eric Reed is the Brian Williams of Miami sports shows. Hear us out on this one. You trust the brass-voiced NBC newsman to tell it to you straight, right? Well, you can trust Reed when it comes to the latest in Miami sports. Tough draft picks, game-winning plays, and player performance, its all hot takes from the Ticket's Eric Reed Show. Reed's incisive conversation isn't the only draw; whatever the season, you can count on a top-shelf crew of analysts at his side, from Fox Sports Florida Marlins analyst Preston Wilson to Miami Heat guard Norris Cole to ESPN basketball analyst Doris Burke to MLB Network's Brian Kenny and Miami Herald Fins writer Adam Beasley. That mix of intense sports discussion and expert analysis makes The Eric Reed Show a great sports news show. But like Williams — who also stars in awesome viral rap videos on Jimmy Kimmel Live — Reed can also embrace the funny. His end-of-the-week segment "What's Wrong With People?" breaks up the sports talk with some basic, hilarious, shootin'-the-breeze man-talk.

Last spring, a gaping hole yawned in Miami's drive-time radio landscape when nationally syndicated Michael Baisden and his distributor, Cumulus Media, couldn't agree on a new deal for the host, whose mix of politics and music had reached more than eight million listeners nationwide. Miami's Hot 105.1 FM had a choice on its hands: Find another coast-to-coast program to pick up for the Magic City's listeners, or turn to a local to rescue its airwaves. Hot 105.1 went local, and Miami listeners haven't looked back. Rick Party may have grown up in Chicago, but he joined Hot 105 twenty-two years ago and has since become an institution on the dial. From 3 to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, Rick Party in the Afternoon makes weekdays feel like weekends. He and his team deliver hilarious takes on the day's topics, entertaining listener discussions, and, of course, great music. Each episode ends with a cute moment from Party's young daughter, Zion. Who needs national talent when the homegrown hosts are this good?

Her nickname is Spanish for "the Kitten." But Betzy Vázquez has a ferocious, sexy roar that has been waking up listeners of her 106.7 FM morning show, El Vacilón de la Gatita, ever since the station switched to a Spanish contemporary music format in November 2013. The show is also simulcast on sister station 95.7 FM, where Vázquez began the Miami leg of her 25-year radio career. An olive-skinned beauty with perfect hair and an assertive voice, Vázquez got into radio when she was just 15 years old. By her early 20s, she was holding down the midday slot for WAPA radio. After bouncing around several stations in Puerto Rico, Vázquez moved in 2003 to Orlando, where she dominated the midday slot and became one of the most important voices in Central Florida. Today, Vázquez anchors the number one show on 106.7 and is a big reason the station has steadily increased its Arbitron ratings in early 2014. "We've worked very hard to get the number one spot," she recently told the hosts of Mega TV talk show Charytín y Felix. "There is no formula for it other than to present yourself as who you are, be honest, and speak without fear of censorship." The Puerto Rican native is the only Hispanic woman in the South Florida market anchoring her own morning program, which airs weekdays from 6 to 10 a.m. ¡Viva La Gatita!

"One sun rose on us today," Richard Blanco intoned from the steps of the U.S. Capitol. Millions of viewers watched on television, and President Barack Obama sat a few feet away, surrounded by the dignitaries gathered to celebrate his second inauguration. "Kindled over our shores, peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces of the Great Lakes," Blanco read on. The lines were more than just the opening to his acclaimed poem "One Today"; they were vividly worded landmarks in Miami history. On that cold January morning, Blanco, a native son raised in Westchester and educated at Christopher Columbus High and Florida International University, became the first immigrant, the first Latino, and the first openly gay inaugural poet. He hardly stopped there. By year's end, he'd had three other works published and gathered plaudits including the Paterson Poetry Prize and an honorary doctorate from Macalester College. Blanco may call Maine home these days, but it's the immigrant experience and the complex identities that collided every day of his Miami upbringing that still drive his work. "One Today," his inaugural poem read to the nation that morning in Washington, is a paean to America's diversity, but it's not difficult to find the DNA of Blanco's hometown in every line. In the weeks that followed that historic moment, he later told the Miami Herald, "I realized how much of a son of Miami I am."

The trouble began in San Cristobal, a hilly town hugging the winding border between Venezuela and Colombia. Jim Wyss was there to talk about contraband, the black-market goods that flood across the border in a country where Hugo Chávez's Bolivarian Revolution continues to wreak havoc on the economy long after his death. A promised interview with a border general turned into hours of waiting, though, and when Wyss tried to bail, he was suddenly thrown into a car and whisked away to a military intelligence compound. This was no interview, he learned; he was under arrest. Such are the occupational hazards of life as the Miami Herald's Andean bureau chief. As one of the last full-time American daily staffers on the foreign-reporting beat, Wyss carries a heavy load from his home base in Bogotá. Yet it's to his credit that writing about an entire continent hasn't led to an influx of dry reports about economic trends or political horseraces. Instead, between his hard-hitting updates on regional conflicts, Wyss has turned in wild narratives about a War of the Worlds-like radio show terrifying Ecuador, graffiti art taking over Bogotá, and Colombian Christmas ads aimed at shaming guerrillas straight. And as that day in San Cristobal shows, he has put his neck on the line to find the stories. For almost 48 hours after his sudden arrest in November 2013, Wyss sat in jail cells wondering whether Maduro's government planned to make an example of the Yankee reporter who had poked too deeply into the troubled regime's issues. With the help of American diplomats, though, saner heads prevailed and Wyss was released. And then? He wrote a killer story about the whole ordeal, of course.

After four years of barking at dishonest politicians and lobbyists, former Miami Herald reporter Elaine de Valle has pulled off a rare feat in this town: She's treated with the same respect afforded to credentialed journalists employed by the dead-lumber media companies. And it's no surprise why. The hard-nosed, old-school reporter tallied 18 years at the Herald before founding Political Cortadito, where she's become a go-to online watchdog sniffing out the latest shenanigans of South Florida's elected officials. From Homestead to Hialeah, de Valle has blown up corruption and unethical behavior and scored a parade of scoops. In the first half of 2014 alone, she broke news about Coral Gables City Manager Pat Salerno giving benefits and raises to his favored employees before abruptly resigning, the Doral City Council's surprise move to axe ex-Miami city manager Joe Carollo, and former state representative Ana Rivas Logan's shocking move to bail on the GOP and become a Democrat. Even when sources slam doors in her face or get her thrown out of rooms, de Valle — often writing as her alter ego "Ladra" — keeps nipping at their heels. Her relentless nature and work ethic have made her blog a must-read for thousands of followers who still care about changing Miami's banana republic political culture by using a healthy dose of transparency.

"All my jokes are tweets that were too many characters," local stand-up comedian Michael Maryanoff once proclaimed in his Twitter bio. It's not uncommon for standups to workshop jokes on the microblogging service, but — for all his humble-bragging — Maryanoff is actually one of the few local comedians making the most of 140 characters or fewer. Some recent gems from his feed:

"How to tell you're at a Cuban party: all the parents are dancing and it's not embarrassing."

"How were people even passive-aggressive before the internet? Especially you-know-who with his stupid office drama posts. Ugh, so annoying."

"Thankfully, the heat in Miami has moved from 'North Korea' to 'China' in terms of oppressiveness."

"You don't need a breathalyzer to figure out when I'm drunk. You'll know when I start calling my girlfriend 'bro.'"

But Maryanoff's road to the stage and Twitter comedy wasn't typical. He began standup as a hobby after being diagnosed with cancer at age 23, and his recovery from the disease has spawned Twitter gold as well: "Wonder when the weight comments are gonna go from 'You gained some good weight post-chemo!' to 'How does your girlfriend still fuck you?'"

If a guy can make a good chemo joke, well, he's probably someone you wouldn't be disappointed to follow.

Just gay guys are reading this item, right? So we can fill this with a bunch of RuPaul's Drag Race references and you'll understand? Yes, gawd! After 15 years on Lincoln Road, Score's landlords told the legendary gay bar to sashay away, so like a panther on the runway, it shantéed to Washington Avenue last year. Before doors opened, all the South Beach gays were wondering, How is she, though? The answer: sickening! Inside, you'll find Pit Crew-worthy bartenders serving drinks, and enough trade on the floor for all your kiki-ing and kai-kai-ing needs. Weekend nights are packed to the rafters, but the Tuesday Latin party and Thursday pop party (hosted by South Beach's perennial drag superstars Daisy Deadpetals and Chyna Girl) provide perfect midweek diversions, henny. Though it's at a new location, Score remains the best place to feel your oats, feel your fantasies, and serve whatever type of realness you want. Okurrrr!

When you're looking for a laid-back evening of food and booze, sometimes it's best to get away from the bustle of South Beach and take a night off from hunting for parking in the Gables. Miami Springs might not be famous for hopping nightlife, but Woody's West End Tavern offers an easygoing getaway from all the Magic City madness. Woody's is a colorful little spot near Miami International Airport with a Florida-meets-Hawaii design. Panthers and Dolphins memorabilia and all the big screens make this an excellent game-watching scene, but it's more cheery than your typical sports bar, with ample seating both inside and outdoors, where there's a sandy ode-to-surfing area, comfy chairs, and a large screening wall for games. Live music nights on the patio Fridays and Saturdays bring in the biggest crowds, with jazz, blues, and rock bands playing late, while daily happy hour from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. gets you half-price appetizers and specials on drinks. Woody's has 15 draft beers — a mix of local, domestic, and seasonal spotlights that's continuously updated. You'll find great brews such as Kona Brewing Company and Dogfish Head Brewery for about $4.50 a pint or bottle. The tavern's made-to-order menu includes all the usual fixings, such as fries, wings, and burgers, plus a good bit of seafood. With its friendly staff, jukebox jams, and fair prices, Woody's makes spending a day in quiet suburbia a surprising treat.

Some folks like their drag queens on the tame side, expertly tucked and quaffed, and ready to smile through Katy Perry lyrics. But for the most part, that ain't Miami's style. This city's got flavor — a lot of Latin flavor, in fact — and the queens at Azucar serve it in abundance. Formerly called Club Sugar, Azucar offers a lethal dose of salsa, disco, and diva flair, plus a dash of dirty that suits this filthy town just right. Every Thursday through Sunday, the club's performers bust out song numbers and skits, all while keeping the energy at 11. There's everything, including Latina pageant gals lipping ballads and girls getting weird to Gaga. For the fiercest performances, however, Thursday night's Drag Wars is a bitch battle not to be missed. Dolls from all backgrounds compete for the weekly $100 prize and a chance at the semifinals down the road. At Azucar, you can surround the floor and they'll snatch your dollars like the hungry human claw machines they are. Sure, the show doesn't kick off till 2 a.m., but the crowd comes late and the cover stays below $10, so suck down a vodka Red Bull and get with it.

Draw up a list of the many possible places that a hub for newborn creatives might be tucked in Miami-Dade, and a cluster of warehouses stuck behind an Outback Steakhouse in Kendall would presumably be pretty close to the bottom. But get over the odd location and there's no denying the truth: Artistic Vibes brims with life and burbles with creative juices. Founded in 2010, the artist collective in a renovated warehouse gives a platform to a variety of performance art productions, from live music and poetry to stand-up comedy and theater. All genres converge every Thursday night for the most popular event, Open Mic, hosted by comedian Xander Rey and poet Quills Rodriguez. It wouldn't be a true open mike without a few rookies floundering or even some industry veterans filling the room with crushing awkwardness, but Artistic Vibes features some damn good performers who more than balance it out. Well-known local comedians Eric DaSilva and John Vargas and poet/musician Narciso Hilario Montas are just a few of the reliably great acts who frequent the stage. Artistic Vibes' atmosphere is homey and fun, a unique combination amid the typical stiff gallery or dark bar performance backdrop. Audience members can grab beer, popcorn, and other refreshments from the cash bar and settle into a sofa to watch the show. It's kind of like being in a dirty-humored, pothead-friendly version of your grandparents' living room. The AV family has an infectious enthusiasm for what they do, and the result is a well-organized but natural open mike that doesn't take itself too seriously. Best of all, cover is just $5 for nonperformers.

Karaoke walks a fine line between fun and sad. We've all seen that 40-something dude croon Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Under the Bridge" three times a night or that dangerously drunk college girl cry-sing Adele's "Someone Like You." Enough is enough, karaoke mood killers. If you want tears with your tunes, head down to the basement of an Irish pub and jam your heavy hearts out. If you want to have a good time and unleash your inner rock star, sign up for Let's Sang! Described as "karaoke for nerds and music lovers," Let's Sang! was founded by Los Angeles native and Miami-based artist Oly Vargas. It began as a mobile karaoke event but recently found a home at Gramps the last Thursday of every month. There's never a cover, and from 8 p.m. to midnight, divas and karaoke virgins alike can choose from customized song lists that are filled with obscure numbers and posted online before each gathering. The pared-down playlists not only cut wait time but also eliminate those massive, sticky-paged songbooks. Before you rage at the loss of those Top 40 tracks, you can still request songs on Let's Sang!'s Facebook page before events. The selection is always satisfying and fresh, filled with everything from Peggy Lee, the Pixies, and Prince to Stevie Wonder, the Smiths, and Snoop Dogg. The most unique and fun aspect is the spontaneity. The event mixes up the playlist for holidays and special occasions and features interesting guest hosts, including musician Otto Von Schirach, artist Hugo Montoya, and beloved bearded drag queens Juleisy y Karla. Artist Liz Ferrer hosted the most recent ¡En Español!, with Spanish covers of karaoke favorites. Above all, Vargas' enthusiasm turns karaoke, which can often become a tone-deaf mess in lesser hands, into something truly special.

If you had asked us last year what every Miami nightlife addict's bucket list should include, we would've responded with a till-morning rager at Club Space followed by a quick visit to Goldrush — a combination that represented the very best in Miami late-night debauchery. But then Goldrush closed in 2013, and from its T&A ashes rose E11even Miami — which touts itself more as a nightclub and cabaret than a strip club, yet it still features women dancing in all states of undress for your dollar bills. What E11even has really revolutionized is the VIP experience. At this strip, uh, cabaret there are 32 "conversation lounges" that run $450 for a half-hour and $750 per hour and include the personal company of a lithe young woman. But true ballers will want to experience the larger rooms, which feature private entrances, high-end appointments, giant TV screens, mirrored ceilings, and, of course, plenty of entertainment. The rooms don't come cheap, though, going for $1,500 to $5,000 a pop. But there are plenty of worse ways to spend your time or money. Live a little at this 24/7 party playground.

The dusk of the day of the classic jukebox is upon us. Bars throughout Miami-Dade and the wider world are quickly becoming infected with a new type of technology that purports to be some sort of evolution: the digital jukebox. Those internet-connected machines can call up just about any song at will, but they become a dystopian curse when you realize any drunkard with money can cue up the entire discography of Ace of Base or Nickelback if he so wishes. That's not a jukebox. It's musical anarchy. Nothing at Point Lounge looks like it's been updated in about a decade or two, and the jukebox setup, thankfully, is no exception. No touchscreen here. It's filled with a bunch of albums and random mix CDs that were put together by someone who seems like he's still really proud of his college radio show. In other words: You'll never have to worry about walking in and seeing drunk tourists dancing to Miley Cyrus.

For decades, University of Miami students have been trying to dupe the bouncers at this Celtic-themed tavern within walking distance of campus. Yet no matter how closely they resemble their older cousin's expired driver's license photo, the bouncer, propped on his stool outside the double doors, inevitably refuses to let them in. Poor underage drinkers. They're missing out on a beacon for Dade's partygoers looking to keep the night from ending at a 5 a.m. liquor license establishment. But it's not just the postmidnight crowd that has kept the Irish Times clicking on a busy South Miami corner. A hearty menu with everything from sliders to mac 'n' cheese and more traditional fare like bangers 'n' mash, fish 'n' chips and shepherd's pie ensures an all-hours crowd. The double doors in front are left open rain or shine, and the friendly staff is welcoming whether you order a pint of Guinness before noon or are stopping by on your commute home for a game of pool. Assuming, of course, you're not a wayward freshman slurring the lyrics to Katy Perry's latest hit. You should probably just head back to the dorms.

When a bar's front windows are plastered with Bud heavy promo posters and three American flags, you pretty much know what to expect inside. And yes, porn mustaches and bad dye jobs abound inside the Nite Cap Lounge, which doesn't serve snacks but is stocked with plenty of glorious cheese. Because the Cap is technically a sports bar, practically every square inch of its guts are covered in Dolphins regalia. But most people don't drive up to North Miami Beach to stare at the screens; they go for the other patrons. Though it looks like the old-timers know one another better than they know their own families, there's not even a bit of cliquishness. It's a true neighborhood bar where the regular drinkers prioritize making guests feel at home and welcome to come back. (And hey, maybe that's why there are so many regulars in the first place.) Turn your Dale Earnhardt hat backward, pull up a barstool, and order that $1.50 Bud heavy in a plastic mug. Miami might be our nation's most international city, but Nite Cap is as all-American as it gets.

A statue of Bruce Lee's karate-ripped body overlooks the bar. A World War II Hindenburg hub floats from the ceiling. An astronaut in a space suit hangs next to a dangling chandelier made of glass bottles. A bearded dude wearing an Hoy Polloy T-shirt scores on the Playboy pinball machine, and chicks in high-waisted black shorts show off their perfectly toned abs as they chug glass after glass of free vodka soda during ladies' night on Wednesdays. Killer riffs and catchy beats from Jean Jacket and other local indie acts captivate the crowd, and a DJ gets the party started and asses shaking with some serious electro-pop dance tunes. There are regular karaoke nights, the long-running gay party night Glitter Box Mondays, and a good selection of craft beers and well-mixed cocktails. That whole eclectic-meets-hipster vibe that Kill Your Idol's got going is what makes it a diamond in the rough of uhntz-uhntz powerhouses dominating SoBe's drinking scene.

In the past few years, Miami's drinking dens have started catching up with foodie meccas like New York and Chicago by offering increasingly complex craft cocktails — which, don't get us wrong, is a great trend. You won't hear us complaining about delicious concoctions made with fresh ingredients and top-shelf liquor. But sometimes our wallets are asking for a bit of a respite. Face it — there are only so many $14 old-fashioneds we can drink without dipping into our rent money. That's why we're forever grateful that Mike's at Venetia is still thriving downtown. The long-standing watering hole was once the hangout of Miami Herald staffers, whose bayfront headquarters were next door. Despite the paper's departure for Doral, the sticky bartop, outdoor poolside tables, and ornery barflies remain. Drinks are cheap — we're talking $6 for a Jack and Coke. To top it off, Mike's features a Monday-through-Friday happy hour from 4 to 7 p.m., which includes half-off select appetizers and $1 off already well-priced drinks. Best of all, you can down those budget drinks in a cozy den with sweeping views of Biscayne Bay while shooting pool. Next time you're tired of getting all gussied up just to get a damn drink, take the elevator up to Mike's.

Warning: It's a ten-hour walk before the next booze shack and another two straight days of stumbling to Key West. Maybe you're a drunkard without a designated driver. Or you're too broke to buy a ride in a biker's sidecar. Or you just smoked the last doobie and there isn't enough grass at the bottom of your duffle bag to pay for passage aboard a wealthy Parrothead's pleasure yacht. Whatever the reason why you've found yourself stranded, thirsty, and wandering along South Dixie Highway where it suddenly narrows into a two-lane asphalt strip that skips from tiny island to tiny island before finally reaching the southernmost point in the continental United States, this is your Last Chance, as the saloon's smiley-faced sign jeers, to get buzzed off $2.25 draught beers, play some shuffleboard, and use "inside toilets."

Although it sits on the border of West Miami and Coral Gables, Seven Seas exists in an alternate universe where time stopped long ago and a cold one costs $2.50. It's hard to imagine any of its patrons existing for a second anywhere else in Miami; it's too pretentious out there for anyone who appreciates the Seas. And make no mistake: This is one of the city's few true dives. Patrons here are fiercely loyal to the establishment and one another. Although nightlife revelers in the Magic City are notoriously fickle and the places-to-be as ridiculous as anything Stefon would describe in a segment of SNL's "Weekend Update," rest assured that even when hovercrafts fill whatever futuristic concept replaces the parking lot, Seven Seas will still be filled with musty naval relics, dirt-cheap booze, and a convivial blue-collar cast of characters. One such character is Bernie Ravelo, who has hosted Thursday's karaoke night for more than a decade. His quirky cadre of regulars, like the guy who sings only Sinatra, precedes him and will probably outlast him — assuming the normal flow of time even touches life inside Seven Seas.

In Miami Beach, where too many clubs for the glamor set pretentiously serve Goose and Bulls for 20 bucks a pop, finding a bar that doesn't take itself too seriously is as relieving as snagging an ocean breeze on a muggy July afternoon. Patpong Road, brought to you by 50 Eggs, the people behind restaurants such as Yardbird, Swine, and Khong River House, is named for the notorious red-light district in Thailand and offers a cheeky play on a "naughty" night in Bangkok. As you walk up the tin steps into the tiny room, bathed in not-too-subtle red light, you step up to the bar. There, you'll find all the "retro" favorite cocktails you loved in college but are now too "grown up" to drink. Seriously, dude, when was the last time you had a kamikaze or a Long "Thailand" iced tea? The bar puts playful twists on the drinks, though, as in its version of the Sloe Screw. Renamed "A Long, Sloe, Comfortably Spicy Screw up by the Wall," it adds chili syrup, Southern Comfort, génépy, and vodka to the classic recipe. Drinks such as that make perfect sense to sip as you listen to the "latest" tracks by Prince, Culture Club, and Madonna. Patpong Road is kitschy, hilarious, and just plain fun. It's like being at a drunk Thailand pavilion at Epcot — a little bawdy, but ultimately good, delightfully fake times.

LeBron claps his hands, exploding a cloud of powder over the scorers' table. Giancarlo Stanton slides the doughnut off his bat and strides into the box. Ryan Tannehill checks the play on his wristband and jogs into the huddle. The big game is about to start. And you've got a choice to make. You didn't snag a ticket to the stadium, so you can watch at home (yawn) or head to your neighborhood chain sports bar, where you know the food will be mediocre, the staff will be overworked, and the beer will be overpriced. If only there were another way. Good news, Miami sports freaks: There is, and it's in Kendall. Rock Fish Grill is a family-owned eatery with genuine homestyle hospitality, a sinfully tempting menu, and all the games on big screens over the bar. Don't slog through another unbearably mediocre plate of wings. Watch the game with homemade Maryland-style crabcakes ($11.99), fresh steamed snow crab ($9.99), or the signature golden fried Parmigiano-Romano-crusted tilapia sandwich, AKA the "big-ass fish sandwich" ($8.99). The walls are adorned with music memorabilia hailing icons ranging from Pink Floyd to B.B. King, and happy hour Monday through Friday from 2 to 7 p.m. includes $1 off craft beer drafts, $2 selected draft beer, $4 house wines, and 50 percent off all appetizers. LeBron is ready for the game. It's time you stopped making excuses.

Sometimes a losing bet leads to a bigger bet, which leads to a very bad idea. The balls are racked. The cues are chalked. And the $100 bills are counted. Usually, an hour of midday billiards costs only six bucks at Doral's favorite strip-mall pool hall, Doral Billiards. But this next game of eight ball is worth ten grand. The other guy's fat wad of crumpled bills has been crammed into the buttoned pocket of an obese middleman. But you're broke. You're out of paper money. And you're borrowing from an acquaintance with a short temper and a remote piece of property on the edge of the Everglades. The collateral for this friendly loan is the key to a 335-horsepower family heirloom sitting in the parking lot — black, waxed, and the only thing you still own in this world. The other guy breaks, sinks six solids, then misses. You toss back the dregs of a $9 pitcher. You inhale. You exhale. You put down four stripes. You scratch. The other guy smiles, taps his last ball into a corner pocket, follows with the eight, and smiles wider. You feel the sickening, sinking feeling of losing everything. You lean against the table with an open hand on the smooth blue felt. You feel for the outline of the extra key hidden in your empty wallet. You contemplate the odds. You assess your surroundings. The ceiling is black. The walls are red. The floor is green. And it's about 20 paces at a full sprint to the front door.

Time for some real talk: It's damn difficult to mess up a poolside bar in Miami. You're beside a pool. There's a bar. You purchase cocktails, dip your feet into the water, and basically live the American dream as you sip your way to the bottom. How hard can this be, people? Yet an astonishing number of Miami hotels have conspired to ruin this simplest of good things with eye-poppingly overpriced drinks, shoddy service, and pools that are either inaccessibly hip or packed to the gills with sunburned out-of-towners. So props to Hyde Beach for getting it so right. Inside, the bar is decked out like a '70s Brady Bunch rec room, but outside there's 8,000 square feet of pool and beach fun. There are pitchers of mango mojitos ($80) and cucumber watermelon margaritas ($18), or for true backyard ballers, bottles of Moët & Chandon Ice ($475) and vases of sangria made tableside ($200).

Usually every W Hotel has a bar dubbed Living Room, and the South Beach outpost is no different. And though we've stayed at other W locations around North America, we've yet to find one with a lobby bar scene that's as chic as our local one. Beautiful women? Check. Power players? Check. Well-versed bartenders? Check. Excellent cocktails? Check. In fact, it's hard to believe that with so many lovely things surrounding you that the cocktails are still the star here. Concocted by noted mixologist and author Scott Beattie, the drink menu features creatively crafted libations that are meant to be sipped, not chugged. Complex flavors reveal themselves as they touch your tongue and slowly make their way to the back of your throat. Some of our favorites include the Hemingway daiquiri (aged rum, agricole blanc, fresh lime and grapefruit juices, simple syrup, maraschino liqueur, and bitters) and the Miami Manhattan (whiskey, bourbon, sweet vermouth, Angostura bitters, and old-fashioned bitters), which revamp classic cocktails with fresh flavors and give their syrupy impostors the boot. All cocktails cost $16 but are well worth the price. Plus, the W's masculine yet inviting setting means you'll never want to leave.

Question not found on a recent SAT:

Sally had a shitty day at work. She's hangry and needs a few drinks but has only 20 bucks. What does Sally do?

A. She goes home — this is South Beach. You can't eat and drink for $20.

B. She buys a few cans of Four Loko at 7-Eleven and drinks them in the park.

C. She goes to Doraku during happy hour (5 to 7 p.m. daily) and gets two lychee martinis (two for $5), a California roll ($3), a crunchy crab roll ($4), and an order of edamame ($2).

Please think carefully before answering.

There's no question: Miami is a world-class party city. But for all its late-night charm, the scene can be a little redundant. Oh hey, another night out with beautiful people trying their best not to pay for drinks while staring at their phones and bobbing their heads to EDM! Thankfully, the Garret's Catwalk monthly ballroom party is lighting our cultural fire with something unlike anything else the city offers. This is not your grandmother's ballroom. Rather, it's a celebration of vogue dancing, a trend born in the '80s in New York's gay black community. The originators were often thrown out of their homes for their sexuality and lifestyles, so they made their own homes and began fighting it out on the runway. Once a month, Miami's local DJs Gooddroid and Bonnie Beats team up with the legendary Mike Q to host a friendly yet fierce competition to see who in South Florida really knows how to work. Anyone is welcome to give it a go, but honey, these bitches are bringing it. Don't think for a second you can get away with wingin' it. The guest judges make for interesting times, and the open bar from 11 p.m. to midnight gets the party started. Each month comes with a new theme, so dress to impress and brush up on your skills. Please remember — vogueing and walking are not the same thing. These judges come armed with shade. Don't make them throw it.

A conundrum: For more than two years, Slap & Tickle has been one of Miami's best bets for a night of perfect grooves and drunken antics. But for more than two years, Slap & Tickle has also been the root cause of an epidemic of brutal Wednesday-morning hangovers around the Magic City. What to do? There's really only one answer: Stock up on coconut water and Advil and resign yourself to a weekday headache. Headed by local DJs Pirate Stereo, Santiago Caballero, and Panic Bomber, S&T was founded with the idea of giving everyone on the decks a place to play what they really love. Whether it's an international DJ delivering a special set or a local up-and-comer looking to get his or her foot in the door, everyone is welcome at S&T. The only rule is that you've got to heat up the dance floor, and because the people who pile in week after week come armed with a deep love of the music, that's not usually a problem. Hatched at the Electric Pickle, the S&T crew has lately made a cozy home on the intimate Bardot floor. There's usually no cover, and with late-night curfews and delicious drink specials, you'll be hard-pressed to find a better time this side of Hump Day.

"La casa de los artistas" is the slogan Kukaramakara uses to promote itself — and it's hard to argue with that self-assessment. In a city where people bow to the temple of the DJ, it's refreshing to see a live music club stake a claim on prime real estate in Brickell. However, live music alone doesn't make for a great Latin nightclub — most Latin clubs employ some kind of live instrumentation. Kukaramakara has set itself apart by doing it well for several years. The Colombian import started out on NE 11th Street in the old Studio A space. But when the posh South American crowds shied away from the dicey area, Kukaramakara made the best decision by packing up and moving to the city's South American expat epicenter of Brickell. Their live bands keep true to the target audience, employing mainly Colombian and Venezuelan musicians who are able to keep the Latin club vibe 100 percent authentic. Drinks are pricey here, but Miamians don't go to the club to eat and slam booze. Enjoy a moderately priced happy hour at one of the countless places nearby and then head to Kukaramakara for the real draw: shaking your ass to live jams until you can pronounce "merengue" like a native, rolled r and all.

The ghosts of Jackie Gleason and Jerry Garcia roam these halls. Opened in 1950 as the Miami Beach Auditorium, this 3,500-person theater was South Beach's chosen stage for Broadway-style musicals, world-class boxing exhibitions, and cameos by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Bob Hope, and other cocktail-set celebrities. By 1964, it had become the official "home," as the façade proclaimed, "of The Jackie Gleason Show." And though the Great One's SoBe run lasted only six years, he earned a new moniker, Mr. Miami Beach, and the auditorium was permanently renamed in his honor. Four decades later, the ex-hippies finally moved into 1700 Washington Ave. and turned it into the southernmost outpost of Live Nation's Fillmore music venue franchise, named after the San Francisco original where Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, and so many classic '60s rock bands became legends. Though almost constantly under threat of demolition as part of Miami Beach's ongoing pursuit of a 21st-century convention center, the Fillmore and all its history remains one of the only reasons that many of the world's biggest rock bands — from Vampire Weekend to Modest Mouse and Queens of the Stone Age — even bother visiting our city. And now with the sale of Churchill's Pub, the planned relocation of Tobacco Road, and the surprise closure of the Vagabond, Miami music fans and local opening bands such as Jacuzzi Boys need this storied old joint more than ever. As Jackie (dressed as leather-daddy Elvis) once said: "Noooooow, let's rock it and let's roll it, maaaaaan."

Thanks to the Magic City's porous earth and position right at sea level, it's a scientific fact that Miami is one of the toughest places in America to get underground. There's a reason no one has a basement around here, folks. South Florida's musical underground, however, is a very different beast, and we're happy to report it's alive and well and ruled by benevolent overlords named Link/Miami Rebels. True EDM animals who've graduated from festival-ready anthems know that this party crew brings the best in progressive, deep, and techie house music that real fans want to hear. And their latest home base, which is not literally underground owing to the aforementioned geological restrictions, is called Trade. The SoBe spot is booked solid with rare and exciting acts across all groovy styles played on a luxurious dance floor under state-of-the-art lighting. With 7,500 square feet of space, Trade prides itself on being highly versatile, with heavy emphasis on a rich, full sound. From the bar to the system, the place was designed with a full-sensory dance experience in mind. It's not exactly Mammoth Caves, but for the 305 underground experience, Trade is the place to be.

The philosophy of this beat-freak hangout is right there in the name: If you're sitting, you're not dancing, and dancing is the whole point. That's why revelers looking for a grittier party experience in SoBe have been flocking to the latest dimly lit dancehall in town, affectionately referred to as Don't Sit. House heads have come to love the no-nonsense atmosphere in a space that's both charming and imaginative without being frilly and over-the-top. All right, the giant carnival ride light-up wheel dangling from the ceiling might be a lot, but when it's not blinking, you can hardly see the person grooving in front of you. The club has churned out great theme nights such as Rewind — a classic-house party — and killer acts like Francis Harris and DJ Behrouz. Combined with an underground feel that even Miami's hard-to-please fans can appreciate, there's little danger of anyone disobeying this club's driving mantra. Who would want to prop his feet up on the sofa anyway with beats like these rocking his brain?

Like the few remaining white warehouse walls just waiting for a tagger to slather on some spray-paint art, the Mana Wynwood Production Village is a blank slate. With a 39,000-square-foot sound stage and 100,000 of raw square footage, the village can host everything from major film shoots to fashion shows. But this year, the space has showed its true potential — as one of Miami's best spots for live music. In a short time, the location has seen Kendrick Lamar, Boy George, DJ Shadow, XXYYXX, Jamie xx, Darkside, and others entertain massive crowds in the heart of the Magic City's booming arts revival. Thanks to Mana's flexible space, organizers have transformed the village into a venue that can rival the Fillmore for production value, with great acoustics and creative stage designs. Let's face it — the city needs another midsize venue. Mana could help fill that void. Here's hoping this blank slate continues to get slathered in live music.

This Winter Music Conference pop-up-club-turned-permanent-party-spot is downtown Miami's home for, in the words of owner, promoter, and Massive Ideas founder Anders Scherberger, "weirder stuff that doesn't really fit into the normal category." And these days, the whole DWNTWN MIA crowd desperately needs a legit, late-night hangout that isn't just trying to re-create some hipster version of South Beach in a lightly renovated, heavily graffitied warehouse. For a time in the mid- to late 2000s, the NE 14th Street strip was the undisputed epicenter of mainland Miami's underground music and nightlife scene. There was I/O Lounge and PS14 and Pawn Shop and then the Vagabond, but they're all gone now. Yet in a certain way, the Nest is the offspring of that era, despite opening only this year. Now it would definitely be premature to predict any impending, all-out reincarnation of the spirit of 2006. But at least the cool kids and their favorite local acts still have someplace to party for free while dropping that Miami bass, hip-hop, and indie rock and laughing, "Screw the VIP."

Lap dances make a man hungry. Fortunately, there exist splendorous houses of sensual pleasure like Wonderland, a strip club and dining establishment serving full-friction entertainment alongside chimichurri skirt steak with truffle mashed potatoes. While the more exotic aspects of a typical evening at this self-described "ultimate gentleman's club" are overseen by topless professionals with names like Tatyana, Charity, and Kristal, the never-closed kitchen is run by a former Novecento chef who has concocted an ambitious nudie-bar menu of steak-house-lite snacks and fancy American bistro fare. For the ideal five-course boobies-and-food experience, we suggest a $100, multisong sortie to the intimately lit, velvet-curtained private rooms, followed by the $12 shrimp tempura with soy sake sauce, a $10 post-appetizer martini, and the $17 tilapia fillet with chili-garlic spinach, all finished off with the flan de caramelo. Now that's what we call a happy ending. Wait, no. Not that kind.

Last year, Club Space founder Louis Puig sold his stake in the crown jewel of Miami's nightlife scene after 13 years of pushing the dance music mecca into the hearts and minds of booty-shaking people worldwide. How popular is Space? Popular enough that it has to open only once a week, on Saturday nights, to remain profitable. How many other nightclubs can get away with that? Now that new ownership has taken over Space, the best thing they've done so far is leave well enough alone. Except for some minor upgrades here and there, you'll encounter the same ol' familiar venue. This is still the place to go for people who don't want the party to ever end, dancing on the downtown terrace well past sunrise. It has learned to coexist with its new condominium neighbors to the east. But will it survive the encroachment from the planned Miami Worldcenter, the mega-shopping complex due to rise practically next door? Put your money on Space pulling through. In the event of a nuclear fallout, there are two things guaranteed to survive: cockroaches and Club Space.

What were you doing at 22? Between graduating from college and looking for a job, you were probably getting high in your parents' spare bedroom while watching Grandma's Boy on cable. Emi Guerra, on the other hand, was cofounding one of Miami's most influential nightclubs, Space. But beyond that, the reason Guerra's name is synonymous with the best that dance music has to offer is because the man dreams big. Whether it's bringing Swedish House Mafia's Masquerade Motel to Miami for the first time or persuading Deadmau5 to give South Florida another shot by performing a free show at the Ice Palace, Guerra has the right booking agents and managers on speed dial. Sure, there have been hiccups in Guerra's career — UR1, an arts and music festival scheduled to take place during Art Basel, didn't pan out. But it says something about Guerra that he was able to dust himself off afterward and continue his envious nightlife career as if nothing happened. Innovators know there's no success without risk, and luckily for Dade County's dance fiends, Guerra's risks have single-handedly helped turn the Magic City into an EDM mecca.

Gone is the beloved Van Dyke Café, another victim of South Beach's rocketing property values, but thankfully the Magic City jazz that thrived upstairs at the Lincoln Road standby lives on downtown. Every Tuesday night, the Corner serves a delicious slice of syncopation. The atmosphere is much more subdued than the buzzed weekend crowds that make the Corner a go-to post-4 a.m. spot, but you aren't here to party, after all. Instead, sip a perfectly made craft cocktail and enjoy the music. Musicians change weekly, but there's never a bad set, which starts around 10:30 p.m. No matter who's playing, you'll never pay a cover.

A lot of music festivals have come and gone, but rarely is there one that really tries to surpass Miami's expectations. III Points did exactly that last October with a massive effort to rally Miami's neighborhood du jour, Wynwood, through music, art, and technology. Mana Wynwood Production Village served as the central hub, which featured performances by DJ Shadow, James Murphy, XXYYXX, and Jamie xx. The performances spilled over into nearby venues such as Bardot, Gramps, and Grand Central. A highlight was the Juan MacLean set at Gramps, which turned the perennial indie music venue into a house lover's paradise. But if you really dived headfirst into III Points, you would have discovered a seemingly endless schedule of events and panels that both entertained and educated attendees. The most surprising thing was that founders David Sinopoli and Erica Freshman were able to pull the whole event off with only two months of preparation. It'll be interesting to see what the two can do in 2014 now that they've had a full year to organize.

Damn geography. Thanks to our spot on the map, Miami gets screwed over on a lot of great shows. Our peninsular location means many traveling bands simply can't afford to cruise all the way down to the Magic City. Unless they have the funds to buy plane tickets for the musicians and their whole crew, driving up and down just to play to half a room isn't worth it. You've got to know you'll pack the house. Such was the case with the dreamy, lovelorn beauties of England's the XX. Though they'd been indie darlings since the smashing success of 2009's self-titled debut, they just couldn't muster the money to make Miami happen until 2012's Coexist finally shot them further up the charts. How were they to know a sold-out crowd ready to sing along to every word was patiently waiting? "We'd like to make a formal apology for taking our damn time," singer Oliver announced near the end of the show. The energy had been nothing short of electrifying from start to finish. A more welcome debut had never been seen, and surely Miami is a stop the London kids will never miss again, no matter how far out of the way we are.

Did you know that cell phones operate on radio signals and that Wi-Fi is based on the radio frequency spectrum? It's a fact. And what it means is that internet radio is real radio, and your mobile phone is just as much a radio as your old boombox. These are the principles by which the underground sounds of the Miami streets make their way to places like the Ukraine, one of the largest audiences for Dade County Radio, an independent local station that operates just like the big boys at Clear Channel by tracking, monitoring, and reporting the songs it plays. The difference is that unlike the corporate giants, Dade County Radio is committed to offering a professional outlet for local artists to be heard on a world stage. Formerly known as DaOne Radio, the station has repped local talent from Junior Reed to reggae label Black Shadow. The station's motivational approach to encouraging fresh, new sounds for the airwaves is what radio technology is really all about. It works directly with the CMJ college music charts and the U.S. Congress-sanctioned Radio Wave Monitor for reporting BDS spins, and it's partners with 89.1 FM the Streets. As for the tunes, Dade County Radio plays a whole lot of gangsta rap, which the station recognizes as a vital art form with real economic power. That's the power of the airwaves, even if they're landing on your laptop.

The infectious sound of los timbales and bongos fuse with the keyboard as the sax and vocals crescendo. In a matter of seconds, a seductive melody reverberates throughout the room, prompting the party people to involuntarily and uncontrollably shake their asses. They have caught Palo! fever. For more than a decade, the Afro-Cuban funk band has been bringing el sonido caliente to the Magic City. Steve Roitstein, who also teaches at Miami Dade College, is the Palo! mastermind. Prior to becoming the leader of the band, el músico worked with Willy Chirino, Julio Iglesias, and other Latin music legends. He even snagged a Latin Grammy in 2001 for a song he produced for Celia Cruz. Success was definitely on his side, but Roitstein wanted to create something he could call his own. So Palo! was born. The descarga masters may share the same name as the Afro-Cuban religion, but the story behind their moniker comes from a Cuban man who couldn't pronounce Roitstein's first name. To help him out, Roitstein explained it was like "Esteban" but in English. That's when el cubano corrected him by saying, "Ah, Estick!" Because the word palo is Spanish for "stick," the band name was born. More than a decade later, the group continues to spread its rumba across the 305. Just last year, the bandmates released their second album, Palo! Live, which was recorded during their tenth-anniversary bash at the now-defunct PAX. The band was also featured in Miami Boheme, a documentary on PBS showcasing Miami's Latin fusion bands, and their music recently aired on public radio. Roitstein and his crew are now working on a third album set to be released this fall. But you won't have to wait till then to hear them cantar la salsa — chances are you'll catch 'em throwing it down on any given weekend.

DJ Icue began his career in 1995 with a KRS-One record and a dream. Since then, he's played a Calle Ocho stage with Pitbull, Bayfront Park with Gang Starr, and downtown Miami with the Boot Camp Clik. He's even had the Marley brothers by his side and watched regular crowds waving their lighters to his massive tunes at Purdy Lounge, where he's held down the decks for the South Beach club's Monday-night Caribbean, reggae, and dancehall party for more than five years. Once upon a time, this Full Sail University graduate was in charge of dubbing South Park into Portuguese for all of Brazil and Cops into French for all of France, but he dropped those gigs to pursue his passion. Today he produces his own music, makes his own professional motion graphics, performs live video DJ sets regularly, and spins about six local parties a week. You can find him in regular rotation at the aforementioned Purdy, poolside at the Shore Club, at the Bar in Coral Gables, or at the Sandbar in the Grove. Combine all of that with his ability to scratch, mix, and blend vinyl, work with all the latest and greatest computerized DJ technology, and spin six-hour sets without a breather, and you have the hardest-working DJ in Miami. His commitment to the art is inspiring to anybody who wants to make a life in music.

A song is a story with a beat and a melody. And when it comes to telling the true-life stories of North Miami, Jimmy Dade is king. From love and loss to violence, drama, happiness, and heartache, the man puts it all together like his name was Johnny Cash. The 305 native began writing lyrics when he was 11 and turned to music full-time when he was 24 after dropping out of college. His music has since been heard on MTV's series Made, and he has worked with Slip-N-Slide Records and played with artists such as C-Ride, the Game, Rick Ross, Billy Blue, and the Lost Tribe. His graphic tales of street life and the characters who live it are eminently enjoyable thanks to his poetic writing and well-crafted hooks. In addition to writing, he also produces, which gives all of his work a total musicality and always-recognizable style. Jimmy Dade's talent is as hot as concrete in the summertime.

In 2010, four Miami friends were irradiated in a government experiment gone wrong. Instead of perishing from the gamma rays pulsing through their bodies, they soon realized they'd been gifted with strange and incredible powers. Soon they joined forces and became (cue cheesy theme music) the Super Music Group! OK, so Super Music Group doesn't have an origin story quite that Marvel-ous. But in just four years, Derek Walin, Brandon Kessler, Jake Jefferson, and Aramis Lorie have somehow assembled a roster of EDM superheroes worthy of a graphic novel adaptation. Their label has become a hub for about-to-bust-out musicians such as Amtrac, Sluggers, Robb Bank$, Mike Deuce, and three-time DMC world champion Craze. As its artists have climbed the ranks from frequent performances at Miami's underground venues to shows across the globe alongside Skrillex, Kaskade, and A-Trak, the label has hosted everything from late-night dance events to daytime pool parties. Their free pool party, the Deep End, pops off every Saturday at the Mondrian Hotel. Let's just hope they keep using their powers for good.

In a city dominated by hip-hop and EDM, it's tough for a band to cut through all the noise — even when it's rocking out at 11 with buzzing guitars and hard-hitting drumming. Truth is, it takes songwriting chops and an engaging live show to snag the Magic City's attention, no matter how loud you crank the amps. Duo Sean Wouters and Nicolas Espinosa have hit on the perfect combination of aggression and craft. Wouters, a Miami Beach native, and Espinosa, an Argentine who moved to Miami as a kid, met in elementary school and have spent years finding a musical groove together. Since 2009, they've played as Deaf Poets, bringing together garage rock and grunge for an oddly '90s yet contemporary sound. The pair just wrapped up a small U.S. tour around the South and parts of the Midwest to celebrate the release of their debut full-length, 4150, an album featuring plenty of indie-rock goodness in cuts such as "Can't Breathe" and "This Pain." And with smaller indie labels always eying South Florida for the next big thing (see Surfer Blood and Jacuzzi Boys), it's only a matter of time before someone picks up these guys. This is exactly the kind of racket that's worth tuning out the DJ.

Who knew that a metal band formed by two kids in fourth grade could be this bone-rattlingly, gut-rumblingly brutal? OK, so it's true that Arturo Garcia and Guillermo Gonzalez, elementary school classmates and lifelong pals, are all grown up and 20-something now. But they started shredding together at the ridiculously precocious age of 10. (Side note: If any CD-R rehearsal recordings of these then-preteen rockers are collecting dust and scratches on a shelf in an A/V room somewhere, please send via same-day courier to Miami New Times, 2750 NW Third Ave., Suite 24, Miami, Florida, 33127. Gracias.) By their late teens, Garcia recently recalled, "We were both playing all kinds of different styles, we were in different bands, we were gigging musicians a lot, playing jazz, Latin music." But they soon focused on Cave of Swimmers (formerly known as the Tunnel), a two-man experimental sludge band that seemingly emerged out of nowhere to crush the skulls and liquefy the minds of Miami metal vets, including Orbweaver's Randy Piro, who has since proclaimed, "Literally, they're one of my favorite bands right now. Weird, awesome shit."

Music is best enjoyed with a little mystery, so we won't hold it against Sluggers that they keep their identities secret. It must be the duo's way of letting the music speak for itself. And with beats like these, there's no use for talking heads. The crew has released killer jams through happening labels Fool's Gold, Mad Decent, and Slow Roast, and has lately remixed big names like Diplo, opened for Kill the Noise and Mat Zo, and nabbed a gig at Ultra. Their signature tracks, such as "Richie Rich," "Courtesy," and "Turbo Fade," leave revelers simultaneously dancing like strippers and looking over their shoulders for ghosts. Sluggers' beats are dark, but they're also hauntingly sexy, hitting you with a hip-hop edge rounded out with tons of eerie sci-fi space bleeps. It's an amalgamation of tastes boiled down and perfectly simmered in one heaping pot of I've-got-to-hear-that-again. Don't be surprised when their faceless logo is plastered all over the scene in coming months.

If music is a journey, Austin Paul has been strapped into one of those new Virgin Galactic rockets blasting off into the stratosphere. Paul had moved out of his strict Christian parents' Miami house for only a bit more than a year when everything changed for him. That's when Pharrell proclaimed the then-20-year-old Magic City native "the future" and doors began cascading open for the singer-songwriter — from a showcase at Bardot to a chance to collaborate with luminaries like Timbaland. But lest you think Paul has been the beneficiary of a famous backer, it's his music that speaks for itself — a spooky, soulful mix of R&B vocals, glitchy samples, and minimalist beats that echo James Blake and the XX. Rather than be glossed with pop sheen, his compositions find a lyrical sweet spot that establishes a deeper connection with listeners. Paul's journey is just beginning, but it's clear we're already ready to strap in alongside him for the ride.

From the fuzzy bass line to its opening shot of a fierce-looking field hockey club, it's obvious from the outset that the Jacuzzi Boys' "Double Vision" isn't your typical feel-good music video. In fact, the three-minute 13-second flick packs more punch than many other, much longer movies. Director Corey Adams subtly alludes to Greek mythology while delivering a sexy and slickly produced punk-rock video. At the beginning of the video, four beautiful women armed with weapons, bizarre makeup, and six-inch spike heels meet in an underground tunnel. They pour liquor into one another's mouths while dirty dancing and performing other suggestive acts, like licking a bowling ball (one of the video's enduring images). When one woman hurls the bowling ball down the tunnel, however, it's an early hint of the girls' destructive side. Sure enough, the song's hook — "You've got to t-t-t-take it apart" — is fulfilled when the women come across an old man in his car. They attack the vehicle, pull the geezer out, and smash the car's window with — you guessed it — the bowling ball. Then they toss the bewildered, bearded senior citizen into the back and drive crazily into the countryside, along the way force-feeding the old man swigs of liquor. The video and the song reach a furious frenzy when the car comes to a stop on a dusty path in the middle of nowhere. The women tear off their clothes — and that of the old man — before climbing atop the car. As the old guy sits in the dirt, staring up at them dancing lustily atop his stolen car, Jacuzzi Boys guitarist Gabriel Alcala launches into a soaring solo. The old man, now enthralled by his captors, beckons for them to come closer. But the women instead blow him a kiss and take off in his ride. The video is a clever meditation on music and inspiration, with the four women as modern-day muses. Or, perhaps, they represent the maenads that would wander the countryside, drinking and making love with Dionysus until the party suddenly reached a fever pitch and they would tear their host to pieces. Adams' music video is inviting us to think about youth, sex, drugs, and destruction — issues at the heart of the Jacuzzi Boys' music.

You've got a lot to live up to if you claim the domain name "The305.com." It would be a true shame to waste digital real estate on throwaway vacation tips or links to time-shares. A site with a name like that — "The 305" — has some serious standards to live up to. Thankfully, The305.com doesn't disappoint. It's now a bit of a pan-cultural blog, but the lifeblood of this site still remains Miami's nightlife and hip-hop music scene. It was the first to jump on some of Miami's emerging talent, such as crooner Steven A. Clark, Monk, and Eskeerdo, while still supporting successful hometowners like Rick Ross and Pitbull. Of course, mixed in with The 305's music coverage is info on how to live your own baller lifestyle, with features on events, fashion, and the art scene as a bonus. It's the best game in town, and don't even think about trying to compete by registering The786.com. That domain name just redirects to The 305 anyway.

Futures in Arctic ice shelves. Horse-and-buggy stock. Donald Trump hair-care products. There are some investments conventional wisdom dictates smart business people in the early 21st Century simply should not make. Sadly for ink-stained scribes everywhere, "daily newspaper ownership" falls squarely into that category. So it's a measure of just how far up the visionary business genius charts Jeff Bezos has rocketed in recent years that when he bought the Washington Post last summer for a cool $250 million in cash, investors reacted with cautious curiosity instead of sprinting for the exits. It shouldn't have been a surprising reaction, though, considering that Bezos' Midas touch has created one of the great post-Steve Jobs business empires in America. His path to glory started right here in Miami-Dade County, where Bezos graduated as valedictorian from Miami Palmetto Senior High School and won a Silver Knight Award. In 1994, after graduating from Princeton, he founded Amazon.com and has rarely stopped wrecking expectations for what an online bookstore can do. As his personal fortune has ballooned to more than $20 billion, he's revolutionized web shopping and shown few signs of stopping. (Check out his latest plan to deliver orders by drone.) Can he reboot the similarly moribund daily newspaper business? Time will tell, but based on his track record, Bezos is one Miamian the dead-tree business should be thrilled to have in its corner.

"I didn't come here to make history," Lauryn Williams told the NBC crew in Sochi, Russia. But the silver medal gleaming around her neck told a different story. It's a tale of speed, transition, perseverance, and — yes — ultimately, of history. The Pittsburgh native came to South Florida in 2001 to run track at the University of Miami. She is just five-foot-three, but — as competitors on the field soon learned — there's a nuclear power plant's worth of energy stored within her. Williams turned her collegiate career into a shot at the Olympics and, just after graduating in 2004, snagged a silver medal in Athens in the 100-meter dash. Eight years later in London, she added a gold medal to her collection as a member of the four-by-100-meter relay team. And then a curious thing happened. In the airport on the way to a track meet, a fellow star mentioned a curious idea to Williams: The Winter Games were coming up. Why not give bobsledding a try? Sure enough, after just six months of training, Williams' sheer power earned her the job of brakeman on a qualifying team. And on the course at Sochi, her sled nabbed second place, earning her another silver medal. In the process, the pride of Coral Gables became the first American woman ever to medal at both the Summer and Winter games. But as the soft-spoken speedster told NBC, all that was subtext to the thrill of competing — and winning — at a new sport. "Making the history part is just an extra bonus," she said with a grin.

For a decade, Chad Johnson was one of the best professional football players on the planet. But when a big-money move to the New England Patriots didn't work out, the man once known as "Ochocinco" was 86ed from the limelight. He moved back to his native Miami, signed with the Dolphins, and married reality-TV star Evelyn Lozada. Life was good. Shortly before the season started, however, Johnson was arrested for allegedly head-butting Lozada. In a matter of hours, he was dumped by his team, wife, and most of his fans. But as New Times revealed in a profile of the beleaguered baller, Johnson may not actually have attacked Lozada. Either way, he tried to put his broken life back together by spending time by himself and with his one, unwavering friend: Lolita the killer whale. Johnson, who grew up in Liberty City, had been fascinated by the animal since first seeing her decades before. Now he would come to the Miami Seaquarium by himself and watch her leap like a wide receiver out of her cage. One day, after everyone else had gone, Lolita's trainers invited Johnson onto the slippery platform in the middle of Lolita's pen. He crouched down on his knees as if praying. Suddenly, the orca emerged from the water in front of him, its open mouth revealing a line of sharp, six-inch teeth. Johnson leaned forward and kissed Lolita on her pale, pink tongue. Then he leaped into the air as if once again celebrating a touchdown. For a moment, the pain and penury of the past year was gone, and Johnson's smile was as wide as the orca's. "I don't need a woman when I'm tonguing a killer whale," he said.

How good a guy is Paul DiMare? Well, in 2012, he and wife, Swanee, saw a car swerving all over the road up north in Massachusetts with two kids in back. They noticed the driver seemed drunk and called cops, "which quite possibly could have prevented a fatal car crash," according to a local TV station. Then this spring, Paul and Swanee pledged $12.5 million through the Paul J. DiMare Foundation to the University of Miami. About half of it, $6 million, will support scholarships at the Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine. UM's Frost School of Music will get $2 million for a new recital hall. And money will go for athletic scholarships and other athletic needs. The DiMares are among the Southeast's largest fruit and vegetable packers. They are also damned fine people.

In this city, the moniker "power couple" usually denotes old and wealthy. But how about a pair who are young and influential? Look no further than Sean Drake and Michelle Leshem, who under the name Supermarket Creative guide Miami businesses to new heights of coolness and brand awareness. When they aren't busy promoting others, they are actually DJing around town. Drake has already opened for legends like John Digweed, while Leshem spins as part of the Ess & Emm duo with her friend Sasha Lauzon. Together these women have spun at countless high-profile events and for a while even enjoyed a residency Thursday nights at Set. If you manage to break into the couple's close network of friends, you'll enjoy invites to plenty of hush-hush events and private house parties. Their names may not a grace a local museum just yet, but Drake and Leshem's stamp of approval already carries plenty of weight around Miami.

Back in 2008, Alberto Carvalho inherited the top job at Miami-Dade Public Schools under doubly unenviable circumstances. On one hand, the system was in turmoil — his predecessor, Rudy Crew, had just been forced out, teacher morale was plummeting, and sharks were circling around his position from the start. On the other hand, just before getting pushed out, Crew had earned the highest recognition ever for a Florida schools chief, becoming the first from the Sunshine State to win National Superintendent of the Year. Five years later, Carvalho had already surpassed his predecessor's achievements. Graduation levels had spiked across the board. Test scores were also on the rise. His system won the 2012 Broad Prize, a prestigious award for urban districts. And then this February, Carvalho became the second Floridian to nab honors as National Superintendent of the Year. It's all a testament to a fine turnaround job in one of America's most historically troubled districts but also to Carvalho's unmatched political skills. Not many leaders could have moved into such a toxic job and not only survived but thrived. Carvalho even managed to finagle voter support last year for $1.2 billion in bonds for new construction and technology projects at the height of Marlins Stadium antispending fervor. A politico who can escape the Jeffrey Loria effect? Now that's a miracle.

He is dreamy. He is a (former) professional soccer player, an underwear model, an entrepreneur, a father of four nonsensically named children, and husband to an insanely thin international pop star. And — most recently — he is the owner of a shiny new Major League Soccer franchise. One thing he is not, however, is from Miami. So it seemed a bit odd when Becks began appearing at Heat games alongside Bolivian billionaire Marcelo Clauré, flashing his handsome face and broadcasting not-so-subtle hints that he wanted to make sweet, sweet love to the city until it gave him a baby soccer stadium of his own. Well, we were flattered by this charming foreigner, weren't we? If we're honest, we'll admit to feeling a tingling somewhere below our tummies. But the question of where Beckham was going to put it — his stadium, that is — is trickier. After the Marlins' bait and switch, we are wary of rich men and their promises. Beckham is no Jeffrey Loria, but even the handsome Brit came on a little strong when he said he wouldn't settle for anything less than a spot on the waterfront.

For a decade, Manny Maroño ruled over the quiet suburb of Sweetwater, an enclave of 14,000 people in western Miami-Dade County previously most notable for being founded by a troupe of circus midgets looking for a tropical retirement locale. Maroño tried to force his way into local headlines with a loud crusade against bath salts and synthetic marijuana, despite the fact that there was scant evidence the stuff was anywhere to be found in his municipality. If it was headlines Maroño craved, though, he finally got them last August. That's when an FBI sting nabbed him taking up to $40,000 in kickbacks for getting bogus grant applications through the city bureaucracy. The Sweetwater mayor wasn't alone — in fact, Miami Lakes Mayor Michael Pizzi was caught up and arrested in the same sting. Two other Dade mayors, in Homestead and North Miami, have also been arrested this year. What makes Maroño's case sweeter, though, is that his arrest was followed by a swift conviction and a hefty sentence, penalties all too rare in dirty Dade politics. In January, a federal judge nailed the ex-politico with 40 months in the slammer — longer than even prosecutors had recommended — while calling cases like his a "cancer" on South Florida. Honest residents can only hope that Maroño's sentence is one step toward curing the disease.

In a world where giant man-children are paid millions to play a game, where teams kick the crap out of each other on live television every Sunday, this year's greatest battle won't be on the football field but in the locker room. Starring Richie Incognito as a racist bully and Jonathan Martin as his awkward, antisocial victim, this is the story of how the 2013 Miami Dolphins self-destructed before the season even began.

Martin: Ima egg your house & light a bag of shit on fire then ring your doorbell.

Incognito: I'm going to shoot you and claim self defense.

Also starring: Joe Philbin as the clueless coach, Jeff Ireland as the generally hated general manager, and Mike Pouncey as Incognito's idiot sidekick.

Rated R for locker-room nudity, sexually explicit scenes inside strip clubs, and offensive jokes about Martin's sister.

Available on Blue-ray or in print in Ted Wells' "Report to the National Football League Concerning Issues of Workplace Conduct at the Miami Dolphins."

When New Times broke the story of a security guard nearly trampled to death on Ultra's opening night, public officials lined up to express outrage. After all, it wasn't the first calamity at the 16-year-old electronic music festival. For the second straight year, a young Ultragoer had died of a suspected drug overdose. Dozens more each year are hospitalized. Police-involved beatings and lawsuits are legion. But two politicians in particular tried to turn the trampling into a turning point for relocating the festival. "I think they have overstayed their welcome," said City Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, citing the trampling as well as "serious and well-documented" drug abuse. Mayor Tomás Regalado echoed Sarnoff's anger. "I think we should not have Ultra next year here," he said. "We don't want to be showcased as the city of chaos." The two put together a resolution — based mostly on New Times clips — calling for Ultra to be booted from Bayfront Park. Sarnoff presented his own survey of downtown business owners that showed they were overwhelmingly against Ultra. And during a commission debate on the resolution, he went so far as to present a Twitter photo depicting a scantily clad woman snorting cocaine off another chick's snooch. But the resolution failed miserably, with no other commissioners supporting it. Their argument was simple and insuperable: Ultra makes Miami a shit-ton of money. "It really does put Miami on the map," Commissioner Francis Suarez said, noting that nearly 200,000 people attended and comparing the event to Art Basel. But there was another reason Regalado and Sarnoff's resolution was booed off the stage. They were outmaneuvered by Ultra organizers, who, just days before the vote, hired Miami Beach Police Chief Ray Martinez to oversee security for future festivals. The commission's vote insured that Ultra is here to stay. Meanwhile, the standoff cost the two politicians, Sarnoff in particular. "He lost a lot of clout on that one," says one local business owner. "What was he thinking?"

No one thought too much of the date on that February 2009 night when the University of Miami rechristened its baseball diamond "Alex Rodriguez Park." The Yankees slugger stood behind a lectern and watched as his name was revealed on the scoreboard. Then A-Rod made a seven-minute speech to his hometown crowd. He described sneaking into games without paying, an offense more than made up for by his $3.9 million donation. And he briefly mentioned his "mistakes" — a fleeting reference to the fact that his name had been connected to positive steroid tests seven years before. Like the date, no one on this night seemed to care too much about the tests. A-Rod received a 45-second standing ovation. Five years later, however, that Friday the 13th speech seems prophetic. Rodriguez's steroid nightmare wasn't as far behind him as he wanted everyone to believe. In fact, it was only just beginning. In January 2013, New Times published evidence that A-Rod had never stopped taking steroids. Instead, he had employed a wannabee local doctor named Tony Bosch to pump him full of performance-enhancing drugs. Rodriguez, who spent most of his teenage years in Miami, was suspended for a record 211 games by Major League Baseball because of the Biogenesis scandal. The U may not have removed his name from the scoreboard yet, but A-Rod's hometown rep is all but ruined.

Before she was an internationally reviled "pot princess" — long before she pulled out her cell phone, climbed into her car, and drove the wrong way down a highway exit ramp — Kayla Mendoza was just a typical 20-year-old South Florida girl. But then came the margaritas, the shots, and the infamous tweet: "2 drunk 2 care." In the fiery crash that followed a few hours later, Mendoza plowed head-on into another car and killed two women her own age. Mendoza says she doesn't remember the accident but is sickened by the deaths she drunkenly caused. She also says the tweet was in reference to an argument with her boyfriend, not a dismissal of the dangers of drunk driving. Despite her excuses, however, Mendoza faces a charge of DUI manslaughter. Her sad story is a reminder of the evil we are all capable of, if we let ourselves slip.

Tango lessons. Museum visits. A Junot Díaz lecture. And lots of fine wine. The Downtown Arts+Science Salon is like the montage scene in a Hollywood movie, in which a schlubby male is transformed into a veritable Renaissance man. You arrive swigging screwdrivers and grunting about sports; you leave sipping Chardonnay and discussing Albert Camus. But this isn't a vanity project. Non, mon cher. (Thanks "French Affair" night!) The salon is full of smart young women seeking a man with whom to whisper Oscar Wao and perform paso dobles. Modeled after the New York Public Library's Conversation Series and the wildly popular TED Talks, DASS' events are designed to build a downtown community by putting young, intelligent, and — as often as not — attractive people together. A six-month membership costs $100 and gets you into some events for free, others for half price. And when you do meet your guapa genius, the two of you can get a couple's membership for just $150. After all, these salons may be about the mind, but you can't spell "DASS" without a whole lotta ass.

It's no secret that Miami is awash in beautiful women. Aside from the Miami Heat's halftime show, however, there are fewer greater concentrations of local beauty than a class at Green Monkey yoga studio. Perhaps it's a product of the neighborhood: Sunset Harbour seems to excrete sex like sweat in a Bikram yoga class. Or perhaps it's the quality of classes at Green Monkey that should be credited with carving its students into marvels of human anatomy. One way or another, the place's "Tree House" releases waves of gorgeous women every hour, on the hour. Sign up for a yoga, Pilates, or capoeira class, or simply take a seat at Panther Coffee next door and sip your cafecito as Miami's loveliest women walk past. Who knows? You may be only a downward dog away from a first date.

Large, golden towering letters sit atop the entrance.

It tickles your curiosity. Causes you to enter.

The welcoming atmosphere attracts.

Stay to observe the plethora of beers.

Tap your foot to the pleasant sounds

that fill the air and fascinate.

What brought you here in the first place?

That beer.

The boys discussing manly topics.

That transform with every new entry into:

TITANIC.

When you've exhausted the drunk hunks at the bar, when the lying creeps of Tinder have left you feeling hopeless, you need a man who's solid and steady. He's adventurous, he's intelligent, he's fit-as-fuck, and he's hanging out, waiting for you to find him at the rock gym. You know he's gorgeous. He spends four to five days a week clinging ten feet up in the air to nothing but a measly finger hole. You know he's down for anything, because his idea of a vacation is climbing mountains and exploring caves the rest of civilization forgot. He'll keep you motivated and eating right, and he'll introduce you to new people, places, and practices. As long as you're not turned off by the smell of man sweat (because the back of his car probably stinks like his climbing gloves), all you have to do to win his heart is be down for the ride. And if it doesn't work out, hey, you had an adventure, and his full-body muscle tone was really worth it.

Back in the days when courting and wooing were the highest forms of flirting, a stroll through the gardens of an estate allowed you to hold hands with your love. Nowadays, the idea might seem dated, but there's still no nicer way to spend an afternoon with that special person amid trees, flowers, lakes, and loveliness. So buy a pair of tickets for Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, and keep them in your sock drawer. Adults pay $25, seniors $18, kids $12, and those age 5 and under are admitted free. Hours are 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. most days. With beautiful blown-glass installations by Dale Chihuly peppered throughout the grounds, lots of iguanas scampering about, and 83 acres to enjoy, Fairchild is a perfect "getting to know you, getting to know all-l-l about you" kind of place.

Sure, Miami has the beach, the Heat, and the shops, but if you want to take your visitors somewhere outside the norm for tourists, head over to a show at one of the hidden gems of downtown Miami, the Olympia Theater at the Gusman Center for the Performing Arts. Opened in 1926 as a lavish silent movie palace and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984, the Olympia still has all the charm of old Miami on display. As visitors enter, they are transported to a European villa under the night sky. The realism of the surroundings creates a one-of-a-kind experience that your family and friends will be talking about for a long time.

It's hard to go out on the beach without getting mobbed by tourists in YOLO T-shirts and shutter shades. Note that we didn't say impossible. That's because there's a bar built into an otherwise ordinary West End condo building that's the aesthetic opposite of MTV Spring Break 2007. In fact, even though there's a wide-screen TV constantly blaring cable news into the otherwise-dim VFW Hall on South Beach, it seems like no one there has been fazed by a single cultural phenomenon since the Vietnam War ended. While the beach is a constantly replenishing population of transients, you can always count on finding the same scene at the ol' VFW. There's the guy playing the casino videogame in the back room, the back-slapping old-timers, and the no-nonsense barkeep who possesses an almost supernatural ability to know when someone's dangling a cigarette over the pool table. Miami is a place of nearly constant anonymity, and the VFW Hall is our closest equivalent to Cheers — a place where if you go there enough, there's at least a 5 percent chance someone will remember your name. But more important: Where else can you sip a $2.50 beer and take in a panoramic view of South Beach?

Some call it "Spring Break for Chefs"; others term it a "Bacchanal on the Beach." Whatever its title, the South Beach Wine & Food Festival, soon to celebrate its 14th year, is a multiday extravaganza for those of us who love to eat, drink, and mingle with the likes of Guy Fieri and Rachael Ray. The festival, which boasts more than 70 events, parties, seminars, and dinners, takes over Miami Beach and, like a Pinot-scented kudzu, is slowly creeping over midtown Miami as well. Sure, ticket prices can be steep, but who would put a price on the opportunity to share a burger with Food Network stars like Geoffrey Zakarian and Martha Stewart or be in the audience when Paula Deen rides Robert Irvine like a pony? Even the festival creator, Lee Brian Schrager, has become a celebrity, hosting his first seminar this past year. Can't afford a $300 ticket? You'll still have your shot to eat, drink, and be merry with your favorite famous foodies — just hang out at a favorite watering hole like Club Deuce or the Broken Shaker and wait for Anthony Bourdain or Scott Conant to stroll in for a nightcap. What puts the cherry on this cake? The entire weekend — next year planned for February 19 to 22 — benefits Florida International University's Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management and the Southern Wine & Spirits Beverage Management Center.

Take a swig of rum, close your eyes, and picture the perfect concert. Palm trees sway in the cool breeze sliding off the ocean just a few feet away. The band — let's say world-renowned Malian guitarist Bombino and his desert-rock outfit making their South Florida debut — jams out in a restored art deco band shell with perfect acoustics. The crowd sways under the stars, pressed close in the intimate space. It's no fantasy, amigo. That was just the scene at this year's Heineken TransAtlantic Festival, one of Miami's great recurring series in the Magic City's finest outdoor music venue. The North Shore Park Band Shell, tucked just off Collins Avenue in the center of North Beach, has become a key piece of Miami Beach's music scene since a nine-month renovation in 2011 restored the deco gem. Between regular free shows featuring local symphony orchestras and jazz groups (and weekly free outdoor movie nights for locals), the band shell is an astounding place. It also hosts more ambitious efforts like the TransAtlantic Festival, which bring acclaimed international acts — like Bombino and Chilean electro-stars Astro this year — for their Florida debuts.