Opinion & Commentary

Back in Miami’s bass music heyday, music video director Dario L. Jaramillo was making a killing creating, producing, directing and editing music videos for  Joey Boy Records and Warner Bros. artists. I found his 90’s Miami Bass music video reel on youtube, tracked him down through the powers of whois,…

Diversionary Fire He’s a great arms dealer: Your February 5 story “Armed Again” is the most biased piece of sensationalist writing I have ever seen. The author, Penn Bullock, intentionally misleads readers. For example, anyone who was following the AEY story knows that although there were eight contracts that didn’t…

Corbett’s (12721 S. Dixie Hwy., Pinecrest) is a small, wood-paneled bar in a shopping center next to Suniland Park. Inside, there’s a small circular bar with an island of TV sets. Hanging from the flat-screens are stemware and an inflatable flamingo mounting an inflatable shark. Now that’s what I call…

To read past installments of Miami According to Brooklyn, click here. This week I’m just gonna shoot off at the mouth. I want to talk about loyalty. And I don’t mean this to sound like bitching or complaining — I’m just talking about a topic that’s very important to me. I…

Donald Rifkin, a former Miami-Dade police major accused of trying to exchange sensitive information about internal affairs cases in exchange for sex from a female cop, is no longer investigating county officers accused of misconduct. He is now assigned to the Strategic Planning and Policing Bureau, says MDPD spokesman Det…

Not too long ago, as impossible as it looks, sounds and seems, I held a day job. It was a mundane era of wearing socks, shaving, and having far fewer groupies. Sometimes, I needed to call this day job of mine and tell them I was not feeling so good…

I get a lot of feedback about how I’m always negative and not positive. So if people think that all I do is bitch and complain, then they should e-mail me and give me something to write about. What are the topics people want to hear about? What are the…

Tibor’s Claims Are Hollow His son is okay, though: In response to “The Man Who Built Miami” (Tim Elfrink, January 29): I personally dealt with Tibor Hollo and FEC Realty as a vendor on one of his properties. I was warned about how he would promise the moon and deliver…

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement recently ended an investigation into the onetime commander of the Miami-Dade Police Department’s internal affairs unit, concluding Donald Rifkin was hoping to get laid by talking to county cop Carmen Pichardo about sensitive information in the internal affairs case against her. Department rules forbid…

Today’s Hugo Chavez’s tenth anniverary in power. He’s messed with everybody’s brains since taking the oath of office — and he has brought a voice to a lotta poor Venezuelans, many of whom have come to Miami. But this caudillo ain’t slick. He’s lucky. Oil revenues have soared to the…

Karl Rove in the flesh got some UM co-eds very excited. The possibility of spectators in nothing but flesh was the death nail in the coffin of the Lingerie Bowl. Meanwhile, fleshy, nudist tourists are an important part of our economy. On the Dem side, Tampa’s Mayor might run for Senate,…

You just couldn’t let it go Jeff? After getting kicked off of Top Chef this week, DiLido Beach Club chef Jeff McInnis spoke to People magazine about how he feels that Bravo used him a “sex object” for the show.Reality check McInnis, there is only one sex object on Top…

Diamond Nicole Bell didn’t see it coming. On the evening of January 16, she and four friends went to see Notorious at the Aventura AMC Theatre.After they sat down, some of her buddies headed for the concession stand while Diamond, 20, stayed behind to hold their places. Two Hispanic women,…

ZOMG, ya’ll! Did you watch last night’s Super Bowl edition of Top Chef? Poor Jeff McInnis got the boot. We feel for him. The chef from the DiLido Beach Club at the Ritz-Carlton South Beach couldn’t wrap his head around why the judges preferred season 2’s Josie Smith-Malave’s warm ceviche…

You sold me out, bro!  What the hell? What happened? I’ll tell you what happened: I got an e-mail from some dude from the New York Times. He said he was in Miami to cover some sort of terrible crime spree, complete with beheadings. He wanted to write about something…

In the bowels of a boxy concrete monolith northwest of downtown Miami sits cooler number five. Use all of your weight to slide open the heavy polished metal door and a stench storms out. It belts you backward, pummels your senses, and makes you dizzy. It stings your eyes. It’s…

Hustlin’ for the Lord Not so holy: I found Gus Garcia-Robert’s January 22 article “Holy Hustler” very interesting. I have to say, though, that I don’t see Pastor Vincent Spann doing God’s work. To some extent, he’s helping some people, but he’s definitely not keeping his word. Not paying his…

In 1963, the owner of a four-decade-old South Beach dive called Club Deuce — Harold Schwartz — died. The same hour, Mac Klein’s daughter Zina was born in Miami Beach’s Mount Sinai Hospital. “Everything happens for a reason,” Klein says. He bought the club a few days later. Today its…

Menudo has gone through more teenage boys than Sam Adams and Mark Foley combined, but what ever becomes of them once their days of Puerto Rican pop success subsides? Why, they try to get more of that sweet, sweet Puerto Rican pop success, of course. Two members of the band’s…

Yesterday, I blogged about Secure Wrap of Miami’s eight year lock on a Miami International Airport contract to wrap travelers’ luggage in a cellophane-type material to deter theft of personal items. The post was based on a recent report by the county’s inspector general criticizing the Miami-Dade Aviation Department for…

To read past installments of South Florida According to Brooklyn, click here. What I would like to talk about this week is me being a jackass. Recently, I wrote about predatory men and slutty women, and it’s come to my attention that people got the impression I was bashing certain…