Chapter Nine EGO, EGO EVERYWHERE, AND NOT A DROP OF SENSE Earlier this year, when it looked as though the Miami Heat almost certainly would move to Broward, Dade County Commission Chairman Art Teele sat at the downtown arena watching the team take on the Chicago Bulls. Alongside him during…
In a freshening breeze somewhere south of the Marquesas Keys, the yacht veers due west, baring its starboard side to the rolling swells, and suddenly a voyage that had started out so serenely at the docks in Key West turns foul. “We should have a very pleasant ride out there,”…
People move to deep South Dade because they want peace and quiet, a semblance of life in the country. Less traffic, less noise, fewer people. That seems to be why Christine Fuchs moved to Princeton in late 1989. Her house, near the intersection of SW 248th Street and 133rd Avenue,…
Ray is handing out flyers on Washington Avenue at four o’clock in the morning, looking for girls the way his boss told him to: young, but not too young. Pretty. Sexy. Girls with other girls. Girls without guys. Girls who are alone. Girls who look like they might be up…
Felix Morisseau-Leroy speaks six languages fluently, but when he writes poetry it is not in French, English, Spanish, or in the African tongues Twi or Wolof. He writes in Creole — in the voice of the people. His people. The people of Haiti. “Peeee-pulll.” When Morisseau says the word in…
Chapter Five THE RETURN OF CRAZY JOE CAROLLO Within hours of his election this past November as a Miami city commissioner, Joe Carollo was busy extracting promises from his colleagues to appoint him chairman of the Miami Sports and Exhibition Authority. More commonly known by its acronym MSEA (pronounced mee-suh),…
Beverly Causey is quite the connoisseur. In August of last year she telephoned Rochambeau Wines and Liquors in Dobbs Ferry, New York, proffered her American Express card number, and ordered a bottle of ’91 Chateau Montelena zinfandel for $14.99 plus $11.50 shipping and handling. In September she followed up with…
You might say Jorge Delara got a wild hair up his ass a few years back. A 35-year-old free-lance graphic artist who lives in Hialeah, Delara self-published a little pamphlet in 1993. Entitled The Book of Ass, it consisted of two dozen cartoon drawings illustrating English phrases that include the…
People move to deep South Dade because they want peace and quiet, a semblance of life in the country. Less traffic, less noise, fewer people. That seems to be why Christine Fuchs moved to Princeton in late 1989. Her house, near the intersection of SW 248th Street and 133rd Avenue,…
Every spring since 1963, South Florida painters, architects, writers, composers, and photographers of Cuban descent have joined their peers nationwide in bellying up to the Cintas Foundation’s prestigious cash bar. In recent years, eight to ten deserving artists working outside Cuba have been given $10,000 fellowships. Not this year, however…
He competed against bartenders who could pull flowers and live doves from bottles of champagne, toss flaming brandies in the air and catch them with one unscorched hand, concoct four arcane cocktails in 30 seconds, and recite on cue the ingredients of more than 100 blended drinks. Despite the stellar…
Seconds after the anchor chain tumbles into Biscayne Bay, two women on the sun deck strip down to thong bikinis and start lubing their bare breasts with coconut oil. A surfer dude in laser-green swim trunks cuts the air with a rebel yell and somersaults from the top of the…
The Hound of the Baskervilles would love the Old South Dade Dump. The overgrown landscape, hidden from the view of motorists traveling SW 248th Street, its northern boundary, resembles a lumpy, fogbound moor. It’s actually a smoldering, snake-infested bog stuffed with 900,000 tons of buried tires, household garbage, and chemical…
Staff writer Kirk Semple’s cover story “Mistaken Identity” has been chosen as a winner in the 43rd annual Unity Awards in Media contest, sponsored by Lincoln University of Missouri. This national competition recognizes media contributions that reflect issues affecting the rights and well-being of the handicapped and/or minorities. In competition…
Charles Intriago has cultivated his reputation as a crime fighter. Early in his career, as special counsel to then-Florida governor Reubin Askew, the attorney wrote a law that facilitated statewide inquiries into political corruption and organized crime. Later, as a federal prosecutor in Miami, he was responsible for the indictment…
This article was not conceived as a thorough computer-assisted analysis of South Florida wine lists. Thus, while an index of the wine lists compiled appears below, the tables that accompany this story do not single out restaurants by name. Their purpose is merely to illustrate the vast variation one is…
Chip Cassidy, wine director of Crown Wine Merchants and possibly the foremost wine retailer in the Southeast, tilts back in his favorite chair at his favorite table in his favorite restaurant. He raises his glass of 1990 Domaine Trimbach Riesling Cuvee Frederic Emile and swirls it gently, then lets his…
A Coconut Grove restaurateur faces life in the slammer for serving a certain illegal appetizer, one not featured on his menu. A real special. Let’s call it cocaine primavera. And you had to know just how to ask for it. Giovanni Tummolillo owned Cafe Sci Sci, a high-end Italian restaurant…
Ralph Heyndels is sipping an espresso outside the Miami Beach Books & Books on Lincoln Road, trying to explain the unlikely phenomenon occurring at the nearby Alliance Cinema. Largely at Heyndels’s behest, intellectuals from four continents have gathered to debate, discuss, and dissect the idea of gay desire. They have…
The Munchkin — named after Oz’s diminutive residents — is a breeder’s dream. It purrs like a cat, reproduces like a cat, and, best of all, this normal-size stubby-legged feline confection is a brand-meowin’-new gold mine. Only a few thousand exist in the U.S., but it’s not hard to make…
Like many compelling ideas, Love Your Neighbor revealed itself in a vision. In January 1994, Jim Ward and six long-time friends made a pilgrimage to the Super Bowl, as they had done each of the previous thirteen years. In his Atlanta hotel room sometime during the wee hours after the…
As fences go, this one, when it’s completed, will be impressive by any measure: eight feet tall, heavy-duty chainlink with posts securely cemented into the ground, topped with barbed wire, and nearly a mile and a half long. More significant than its length will be the fact that it will…
