News

What would you do if a stranger called you constantly, ringing you up as often as once every eighteen seconds, calling as late as 1:45 in the morning? What would you do if that caller were a cop? A troubled seventeen-year-old runaway from Bay Harbor Islands recently found himself in…

Erin Go Bragh This pik of Miami Police Chief John Timoney has been making the rounds recently. Remember the columns by the Bitch and Chuck Strouse?…

This just in to the Riptide desk! An earth-rattling news bulletin! Joe Arriola has nothing to say! Miami’s usually braggadocious former city manager declined comment about the $1.1 million in bonuses he awarded to non-union employees earlier this year. Arriola approved the bonuses despite even though he claimed that rising…

When we read that Miami Herald publisher Jes�s Diaz resigned this morning, at first we thought he moved too quickly. The guy goes off half-cocked more than one of those cheap exploding Korean pistols. Almost immediately after taking over the newspaper 14 months ago, he fired columnist Jim DeFede for…

The Real Men of Comedy Tour show last night at the Jackie Gleason Theater was off the chain. Frankly, I was only interested in seeing how Charlie Murphy would measure up in front of a live audience without Dave Chapelle’s mad-cap delivery to play off. I’m not a realty television…

Luca Brasi’s doppelganger Today’s Grocer is a trade publication devoting itself to what its title suggests, the splitting of Publix stocks and the penetration of Klondike Bars into the holiday confection market. In the shadow of the gigantic Del Monte Fresh building, the seriously niche magazine held a party celebrating…

We received very exciting news yesterday and we just had to share it with you. Now, we know that you Beach dwellers loathe leaving the island. Heck, you don’t even want to leave your condo, since you paid so much money for it and you now realize that with an…

My husband and I had a long-overdue couples’ night with two of our best friends, Jeff and Jessica, one recent Sunday at Origin Asian Bistro, a South Miami restaurant that was Miami New Times’s 2006 choice for Best Restaurant in South Miami-Dade. We love the place: The Malaysian roti is…

In Northwest Miami-Dade there’s a long, lonely stretch of Florida’s Turnpike that goes 65 blocks without a single exit. From NW 41st to 106th Street, there are no bathroom breaks, no gas station cappuccinos, and a ten-mile turnaround for the distracted driver who misses an exit at either end. With…

Every once in a while, Riptide hears about an average blue-collar Miami-Dade citizen engaging in some inexplicably absurd, devious behavior. One example is the criminal case against Franklin Knowles and Larry Martinez, two gents who earn their keep by stopping shoplifters and identity thieves from plundering the Home Depot at…

What is it about the words gift bag that turns seemingly polite, professional women into raging, catty bitches? You would think that an event called Girls’ Night In would be reminiscent of prepubescent slumber parties replete with snacks, facials, and sisterly bonding. While last night’s event at the Agua Bathouse…

When dominoes, stogies and copious amounts of Bacardi Gold rum converged last night at the Habana Cuba Cigar Lounge in Miami Lakes, I found the opportunity too hard to resist. So I, along with 39 other players, paid a $25 entry fee to compete in the lounge’s seven-week domino tournament…

Miami, the neon swamp we all call home is, evidently, a fine place to sleep. A recent study conducted by Bert Sperling of fifty American cities places us at #8. Despite all the doomful possibilities (hurricanes, gunfire, giant reptile mauling) Miamians are sleeping a hell of a lot better than…

After years of working at Norman’s Restaurant, Chef Jeffrey Brana and his wife Anna have opened a place of their own, Restaurant Brana, in Coral Gables (see this week’s Cafe review). Riptide spoke with Jeffrey by phone and asked him a few questions about subjects not covered in the review…

A secret sexual relationship with his daughter was not enough. There had to be a wedding. And it had to be a grand celebration befitting a Fisher Island multimillionaire who controls billions of dollars from Wall Street to Bermuda, from London to Dubai. So on a sunny June day two…

Mining the Store Filed under: Flotsam Every once in a while, Riptide hears about an average blue-collar Miami-Dade citizen engaging in some inexplicably absurd, devious behavior. One example is the criminal case against Franklin Knowles and Larry Martinez, two gents who earn their keep by stopping shoplifters and identity thieves…

The Eponymous Chair The Bitch follows liquor marketing strategies closely, motivated by her love of both alcohol and advertising. But the hound was confounded by the confluence of booze and booty promised by a party this past Thursday for “The Glenlivet Chair” at the Falabella Bar in the Albion Hotel…

While we happily hung up our single status months ago, the boy and I do still go our separate ways on an occasional evening. (A girl can’t lose touch with her gay boyfriends, can she?) So this past Saturday night, I put on a flirty and flouncy Betsey Johnson dress…

A casual reader of the Sept. 14 issue of Miami Today could be excused for a bout of head-scratching. What was this? On one page, an editorial, clearly marked as such, decried a “quagmire of journalistic ethics,” specifically the recent scandal over El Nuevo Herald reporters paid to moonlight as…

“We’re a merged family, like the Brady Bunch,” says Lionel K. Lightbourne. But like the Partridge Family, they sing: Lightbourne, with fiancee Tanya, their children from previous marriages and even a neighbor or two from Liberty City, call themselves The Fans. The song they produced — “Miami Dolphins 4 Life!!!”…