The Cheap Seats

The BSC Bowl Championship series kicks off with the 2009 FedEx Orange Bowl at Dolphin Stadium. And you could not ask for a crappier matchup to get things rolling. The ACC champs Virginia Tech Hokies are set to face off against the Big East champs Cincinnati Bearcats in the 75th…

GableStage Whips out Adding Machine

A shell-shocked silence filled the GableStage auditorium in Coral Gables Saturday night. The ensemble had just finished a hugely complicated musical number, and from the audience: nothing. Maybe they wanted to applaud, but something in the crowd’s vibe warned against it. Theirs was a silence that communicated not disinterest, not…

Clint Eastwood Finds Salvation in Gran Torino

Walt Kowalski growls a lot — a dyspeptic rumble that wells up from deep inside his belly when he catches sight of his midriff-baring teenage granddaughter text-messaging her way through her grandmother’s funeral, or when his good-for-nothing son and daughter-in-law suggest he sell his house in a gang-infested corner of…

Doubt Wags the Finger of Moral Relativism

Back in the early 1980s, when I was a graduate student in Boston, a prominent professor I knew was accused of sexually harassing a female colleague. This man was a compulsive flirt who couldn’t get within feet of a woman without coming on to her, so I wasn’t altogether surprised…

Kitty Is Goin’ to the Chapel

Hello, Kitty: I am a 42-year-old man who has never been married or had kids, but I’m finally ready for both. The problem is that most of the bachelorettes around my age are either ugly, have kids, or aren’t able to get pregnant. I’ve been in contact with two women…

Drag On

In the Nineties heyday, no respectable South Beach club was without its queens — statuesque bombshells taking on bouncer duties at the door, bumping and grinding on the dance floor, posing for photographs, or generally showing up and being showered with drink tickets just for being so effing fabulous. The…

Beverages on the Boulevard

Uva 69 opened up a brave new hope for residents of the beleaguered Biscayne Boulevard. The charming indoor/outdoor bistro aimed to bring alfresco dining to a bustling thoroughfare best known for hosting an overt and brisk black-market trade. But owners Sinhue and Michael Vega aimed even higher, planning to rescue…

The Man Who Nearly Killed Hitler

It’s July 20, 1944, and Adolf Hitler has been assassinated—the victim of a bomb blast organized and executed by a cabal of high-ranking German army officers seeking to wrest control of the country away from the Third Reich and, with luck, bring an end to World War II. Duped into…

Art That Floats Like a Butterfly

For fans of the “sweet science,” few names evoke ring glory like Muhammad Ali. An Olympic gold medalist and three-time heavyweight champion, Ali ruled the golden age of boxing, becoming lionized as “The Greatest of All Time.” He also has strong South Florida ties, training at the legendary Fifth Street…

Hit the Decks

Tiësto knows what it’s like to command a crowd. The Netherlands-based DJ became the first turntablist to appear onstage at an Olympics opening ceremony, during the 2004 Athens games. But that was no big deal: The trance master routinely plays before European masses of 20,000 to 30,000, teeming cauldrons of…

Art for Down There

You’ve surely heard about it, but call yourself too conservative to venture into SoBe’s most erotic cultural destination. And you’ve totally seen cheeky owner Naomi Wilzig’s Mona Lisa smile atop yellow taxicabs, yet failed to find out what the hell she’s smirking about. If you weren’t such a prude, you’d…

Meet Your Animaker

Got a love for anime? Maybe you’ve been collecting for years — you have all the Voltron figures, including the metal kind made before the toy companies switched to safety-conscious plastic. And your stash of Speed Racer comics is nearly complete — all you need are a few issues of…

All You Can Dance

WinterFest is to dance aficionados what an all-you-can-eat buffet is to the morbidly obese. An orgy of all things dance, WinterFest attracts professionals from exotic locations. And Philadelphia. Miami will witness such an influx of Guggenheim winners that the ghost of John Simon Guggenheim will likely appear in the clouds…

Let’s Start the Debate

Before the NBA Draft this past June, the consensus by scouts and executives was that the draft class was all about highly touted guard Derrick Rose and prolific forward Michael Beasley, with everyone else a distant second. On June 18, the Chicago Bulls made Rose the first overall pick. The…

Pass the Butter

Maryland has the blue crab, an aggressive bugger that will throw a pinch at anything moving on land or sea. Getting them to stay in the pot long enough to send them to a steamy death is a task for a seasoned vet, but the mustardy guts and sweet meat…

The Revolution Will Be Projected

A defining feature of the French New Wave is that it declared all other French film (except for Renoir and Franju) one long reel of shit, the kind of boast that has tragically disappeared from our otherwise hyperopinionated cinematic world. The guys at CCCV haven’t called anyone out yet, but…

Stand Up for Leno

Ask late-night couch potatoes what it means to Jaywalk, and if they watch Letterman, they’ll give you a boring answer about crossing the street at the appropriate time and place. But Leno-philes will tell you it’s the moment you completely forget who lives at the Vatican. Or what color the…

Goodbye, Norma Jean

In her lifetime, Marilyn Monroe created some iconic images — the infamous 1949 Playboy nude, the revealing and playful film still from The Seven Year Itch, the Warhol pop art, and Richard Avedon’s troubled 1957 portrait. None are sadder and more poignant than the shots snapped by legendary fashion and…

Kiss Your Fork at the Stroke of Midnight

As a youth, you were content with spending December 31 watching the nuts in Times Square lose their shit as Dick Clark counted down the seconds until that big disco ball in the sky plummeted to Earth. Somewhere along the line, ringing in the New Year became synonymous with champagne…

Deuces, 2008!

We can’t be the only ones ready to bid adieu to this miserable wretch of a year. It was so doom-and-gloom. At the close of 2008, the economy is in the toilet; folks are losing jobs left, right, and center; and we’re all weary from surviving an election cycle that…

Blaze One for Old Times

The King Mango Strut began in 1982 when a marching band of kazoo-rocking, conch-shell-blowing Dade County representers got denied access to the Orange Bowl Parade and decided to start their own damn party. Coconut Grove was a little different back then — full of longhaired unemployed hippies. They grew up,…