Blowfly Unmasked!

blowfly n. Any of several flies of the family Calliphoridae that deposit their eggs in carcasses or carrion or in open sores and wounds. The American Heritage Dictionary After riding a Metrobus from his home just south of Joe Robbie Stadium to the North Miami Beach record company where he…

What the critics are saying about Joe Genuardi

“Some of his decisions are not popular, but they are correct. Others are simply wrong. But he must have been given the authority to make those decisions or he wouldn’t be making them. Obviously he’s doing what someone higher wants done, or someone else would be in his position.” An…

Become a City of Miami Zoning Administrator

Do you have what it takes to embark on a new career in the highly skilled field of zoning administration? You might possess the special aptitude required to decipher zoning codes and blueprints, to distinguish a C-1 from an R-1 at a glance, to rule on whether a project requires…

Corazon Del Rocanrol

Under a zinc-colored sky, a block away from the railroad tracks and next to a buzzing electrical substation, a young man with hair immaculately slicked back, in black baggies with fob swinging low, oversize gray suit, starched white shirt, and a fat Forties tie takes giant strides as he leads…

Canoe Trip

Long before 1901 – the year Miami’s first canal was dug from the Miami River to present-day Allapattah – social progressives and capitalist greedheads alike had fantasized about a bigger, drier Miami. Not only were the vast western swamplands unprofitable in their natural state, they were an affront to the…

You Can Get There From Here

From the moment I stepped into the canoe, I felt good about the trip. The boat, a seventeen-foot aluminum Grumman, capsized instantly and left me standing up to my shoulders in Biscayne Bay, flapping against the chop. My knapsack bobbed among the swells, along with a life vest and two…

Unhappy Landings

On a Tuesday-morning drive to Miami International Airport, Cesar Trasobares is rolling up the ramp from Le Jeune Road as he begins to describe the terrain around him. “What you have to imagine is a progression from light to dark to light,” he says. “Here we’re going through a dark,…

Art Bypass

It’s the busiest place in South Florida, a $500-million-per-year business that every twelve months sees more than 26 million people come to call. But the roof leaks, some of the walls are collapsing, and the carpets are filthy. Even the man who runs Miami International Airport admits that in many…

The Ogg Man

…Ogggg! Oggggggggggg! Oggggggggggggggggggg! Ogggg! Oggggggggggg! Oggggggggggggggggggg! Ogggg! Oggggggggggg! Oggggggggggggggggggg! Ogggg! Oggggggggggg! Oggggggggggggggggggg!… In sports, the cliche goes, everybody loves a winner. Borderline and mediocre players don’t get any respect. Don’t get product endorsements, don’t get championship rings, don’t get the undying adulation of crowds. Well, don’t believe everything you hear…

Oggianatm

On a sunny Tuesday morning last week, just hours before the Heat hosted the Los Angeles Lakers, Alan Ogg – speaking from his new Miami Beach apartment – offered a rare glimpse inside the private life of a public phenomenon. Age: 23 Birthday: July 5, 1967 Birthstone: Ruby Zodiac Sign:…

Weather People

Let us now explain lightning and thunder, and then whirlwinds, firewinds, and thunderbolts: for the cause of all of them must be assumed to be the same.

Dirty Money

I want to be very wealthy, and I’ll be glad to tell you when I’ve accomplished that goal. John Ellis Bush, son of the president The photograph is unexceptional, according to those who have inspected it, similar to pictures seen in the homes and offices of self-important people everywhere. An…

River Rats

“We nuked it, is what happened,” says Capt. Jim Ratican, gesturing from the wood-paneled pilothouse of the Miami River tug Big Al toward the SW Second Avenue bridge. The battered southern span of the bridge, out of commission since December, when it was struck by the Panamanian freighter Rio Miami…

Back from Baghdad

Three hours before the first U.S. fighter jets left central Saudi Arabia for Baghdad, Kiren Chaudhry sighed and told the 99th reporter of the week what she had just told me: that the sanctions against Iraq were working. She’d been in Iraq a week and a half before, tagging along…

Black Death

Unless the three-week-old Gulf war becomes bloody beyond precedent, one segment of Greater Miami’s population may be safer manning the front lines of battle than at home on the streets of its own neighborhoods. Throughout the county, a young black man now stands a better chance of being killed between…

Nightcrawlers

While starting an overnighting business is now relatively simple – a car, a camera, a map of the city, and any FM radio scanner – technology may soon be complicating the process. Many municipalities, including the cities of Miami and Miami Beach, have switched their police and fire transmissions to…

Just Another Night at the Office

This one is a 3:00 a.m. car wreck, DUI probably, a silver Camaro that screamed into an alley just south of the Marina 8 theaters and couldn’t dodge a parked flat-bed stacked high with baling wire. The driver of the car survived, leaving behind a forehead-shaped crimson stain on the…

Alberto Gonzalez — Wild Man at the Plate

TITO HERNANDEZ: This is Tito Hernandez speaking. These are the headlines of today’s most important news, which we offer you in this edition of El Noticiero La Mogolla, the hottest radio news program in Miami, the capital of el exilio. ORLANDO RAMOS: The public is astonished by the scandal of…

The Man and the Mouth

As any political satirist knows, an impressive array of enemies is at least as important for success as legions of supporters. Alberto Gonzalez revels in his enemies’ list. Not everyone in his hall of shame is a politician, even though Gonzalez asserts, “With very few exceptions, all the politicians I…

Take This Commissioner, Please!

If Miami Beach politics is a joke, Abe Hirschfeld is the punch line. Even in a city hall where the mayor is under investigation by the Feds; where some commissioners view their offices as extensions of their private businesses; where proclamations are issued in honor of politically connected, world-class drug…

Letters From Haiti

We were just standing around in somebody’s yard, as I recall. I didn’t know the guy but I was eating his food and drinking his beer. I was talking to my friend Dan, a furniture refinisher, artist, and skull collector, and he said, “We’re going to Haiti.” I didn’t know…