My topic this week is the bicycle phenomenon here in Miami. Personally, I think that people picking up their bike instead of their car keys is awesome. They’re saying they really do care about their environment, plus it’s a great, fun way to exercise. Even though it may be a…
Tendrils of earthy smoke snake through a room on the edge of Little Havana, past old men in guayaberas slapping dominoes on a folding table and a long counter where a wrinkled 80-year-old brews espresso. Near the front window facing NW Seventh Street, Dionisio Gonzalez gently peels a cured deep-brown…
Local graffiti artists have been getting a lot of attention lately. In February, they pierced the mainstream media by targeting some uber-audacious locations, eventually culminating in a fatal accident. And in April, a photography book, Miami Graffiti, pays tribute to some of the street’s most skilled artists.Husband and wife photographers James…
The Florida Marlins are in desperate need of a great closer. Someone who can seal the deal with the Miami City Commission and the Miami-Dade County Commission over the team’s sweetheart $630 million stadium deal. Right now the Marlins dreams of a new domed home on the former Orange Bowl…
Catholicos, it’s Lent time! Cuaresma, baby! Time for to behave really good. Time to make up for all the sinning and loving ladies and inappropriate gyrating. Time for me to undo the damage of having become a Cuban-American Idol. In Catholic school I was told to give up something during…
It’s not exactly breaking news when American producers are reworking a European reality show for American airwaves. However, we’re surprised that we’ve never heard of the original series in this particular case because it was based in Miami. According to Reuters, RDF USA has acquired the rights to a foreign…
Super Response She’s disappointed: I was excited to read “Superfans” (C. Stiles and John Linn, February 19), until I noticed you missed two big diehard superfan groups: Dungeons & Dragons and animé. My husband, Armando Mendive, is the dungeon master of his group, which has been playing more than 20…
What we’re going to talk about this week is Ecco Lounge, the brand-new restaurant/lounge put together by Aramis Lorie and Brian Basti (of Poplife and PS14, respectively). It’s on the corner of SE Second Avenue and SE First Street, and it’s opening in early March.This project is something they’ve been…
Things have gotten a little crazy in the Miami graffiti scene as of late. First, spray-paint crew Buk 50 made the news when its giant tag obscured an overhead I-95 sign during Presidents’ Day weekend. The uber-ballsy stunt earned a nod from our boss, and a stodgy rebuke from our…
Miami Police Chief John Timoney screwed up, and we taxpayers are just gonna keep paying and paying.Back in November 2003, the City of Miami shut down some protests against a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) meeting being held here. The cops beat some protesters and illegally jailed others…
Riptide just got Tyra Mail! The reigning queen of reality TV train wrecks, Tyra Banks, is casting for the next season of America’s Next Top Model in Miami Beach, but there’s a catch… wait for it… wait for it… The next season, the contestants must all be pregnant male paraplegics ladies 5’7″…
OK, now this is funny. In a Herald correction this morning, the newspaper admitted the first paragraph of Andres Oppeneheimer’s column “was inadvertently picked up from a previous column.”What they actually “picked up” was the headline of the column from three days before: “One sure bet: Venezuela’s condition will worsen.” And…
For the past two days, I’ve noted all the work Miami-Dade County awards Brazilian engineering and construction firm Odebrecht. Despite a history of completing jobs behind schedule and over budget, the company continues to get the nod to build county-funded projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Part of the…
Seeing Miami in a movie or a TV show or music video turns on my internal geek switch. I’m super excited to see the 305 represented on the screen, but I approach America’s assessment of Miami like one of those guys that knows the names of the different kinds of…
Six Good Kids Dead Show some respect: To begin with, Brian DuPree was murdered on a Friday morning, not a Saturday, and he was sitting on the passenger side of the car, not the driver’s side, as Gus Garcia-Roberts wrote in the “Curse of the Class of 2006” (February 12)…
For more than 10 years, Brazilian-based construction firm Odebrecht has made tons of money from Miami-Dade County public works projects. If anything, the company is consistent…at completing jobs behind schedule and charging the county more money to finish. For example, Odebrecht accepted responsibility for having to repair 96 massive concrete…
To read past installments of Miami According to Brooklyn, click here. I think I’m gonna talk about the Miami Beach Police and how they just worry about the petty shit and don’t see the big picture. Like yesterday, I’m driving down West Avenue and get pulled over because my taillight’s…
Imagine you hire a contractor to build your house. And that contractor goes over budget, continually misses deadlines, and then tries to charge you more for it. Logic dictates you wouldn’t hire that contractor again, unless you’re a sucker. Well, Miami-Dade County government is the biggest sucker when it comes…
Riptide was actually not aware that NBC bothered to broadcast anything besides 30 Rock, The Office, and the “I really, really hope one day it gets funny” Kath & Kim. But apparently those shows aren’t paying the bills, so they’ve got a schedule full of sweet, sweet reality television, and…
Are you one of the two gazillion people who has passed the sign on I-95 north where the graffiti crew Buk Fifty has scrawled its name over the dang highway?It seems they did it in the dead of night Sunday at the entry to the express lanes — and…
See that pretty 1A pic in this morning’s edition of the Magic City’s largest English-language publication, the Miami Herald? Notice the gorgeous Trinidadian woman next to her equally good-looking hombre? “Patrice Yursik and her husband, Steve, will pick strawberries in a Kendall field and dip them in chocolate, cook dinner and give…
Contrary to popular belief, I am capable of love. Many ladies have loved me, and I love myself as strongly as they did. I know how to show las señoritas a lovely time. I know how to love their bodies, but I can only say “I love you” to myself,…
