A few weeks ago I invited readers to submit ideas that might be helpful to the City of Miami, which, being the poorest big city in America, needs all the help it can get. This solicitation arose from our two-part series “We’re Number One!” (September 26 and October 3). An…
Last Saturday, New Times celebrated its sweet fifteenth anniversary by coming out with some great big cakes, a few thousand friends, a few great bands and DJs, fabulous food from fifteen restaurants, and fifteen drag queens all dressed up as quinceañeras. If that last word lost you (Spanish for a…
It’s safe to crack jokes inside Miami Beach City Hall again. That much was clear at November’s meeting of the Nightlife Industry Task Force (NITF). In a fourth-floor conference room, the group’s chairman, attorney Steve Polisar, gazed out at a long table’s worth of clubland figures and then motioned toward…
Bucks for Blood The business was cash money for donors and it was tainted: I would like to compliment Eric Alan Barton for his detailed story about the finances and competition between South Florida’s two blood banks (“Blood Money,” November 28). If he should write another article, he might be…
“I feel like such an asshole,” joked Rilo Kiley guitarist Blake Sennett to appreciative hoots from the packed audience at Churchill’s. Stepping back from the microphone, he stared incredulously at his broken guitar strap — which had come apart for the fourth time in just as many tunes. It’s hard…
Haitians Are Not Cubans Their lives back home may be miserable, but misery isn’t enough: In response to Francis Francois’s letter titled “Hey People, It’s Time to Call Out the Cavalry” (November 14), first and foremost is the fact that most Cubans do understand the plight of Haitians. We shed…
Riddle: What do the local bands Raw B Jae, Sixo, the Kind, Fulano, and the Spam Allstars all have in common with Colombian pop siren Shakira? Answer: drummer Brendan Buckley and guitarist Adam Zimmon. The two strapping University of Miami grads may well be the hardest-working musicians in Miami –…
The premise seemed sound enough. Not once but twice last week the Design District’s Brit-Pop-and-then-some night Poplife went extracurricular, presenting Rainer Maria and Rilo Kiley last Tuesday at Churchill’s and then a K Records showcase at the Polish American Club’s Blue Velvet Lounge (it’s not really called that), featuring K…
At the Davinci Gallery in Coral Gables recently, Dr. Ferdie Pacheco — the Fight Doctor, Muhammad Ali’s physician for the good part of the champ’s career, and then boxing’s best analyst at NBC and Showtime — had seized an old patron by the elbow. Ferdie looked bespoken in a black…
Yes, Haiti Is a Dreadful Place But that doesn’t mean Miami has to go down the toilet with it: Regarding Rebecca Wakefield’s article about Cheryl Little, who heads the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center (“Little Goes a Long Way,” November 7), when the Haitians landed on Rickenbacker Causeway I just happened…
Hey People, It’s Time to Call Out the Cavalry And for once let’s get our act together: In response to Rebecca Wakefield’s story “Little Goes a Long Way” (November 7), it’s not surprising to me that members of the Hispanic community aren’t coming out in droves to protest the treatment…
Tanks lined Biscayne Boulevard at noon last Sunday just as the Rock en Miami festival was getting under way at Bayfront Park. New Times reported the week before on some bad blood between local Latin rock promoters, but did the situation really require heavy artillery? Well, no; last Sunday was,…
Hillary and Rosie and Two Times Wrong Make that flat-out wrong: Brett Sokol’s column “The Political Dance” (“Kulchur,” October 31), about the annual dinner for the Dade Human Rights Foundation (now named the Gay and Lesbian Foundation of South Florida), requires the correction of some serious misinformation. First this statement:…
No one has done more to build Miami’s rep as the swirling epicenter of cotton candy Latin pop than impresario, erstwhile producer, and savvy pitchman Emilio Estefan, Jr. And no one has done more to counter that rep than independent distributor, Latin alternative booster, and sincere pitchman Gustavo Fernandez. After…
Open mouth, insert high-heeled foot: If you’re speaking at a swanky dinner for a gay community organization, it’s a sure bet your audience will be filled with die-hard liberals, right? Not if it’s the Dade Human Rights Foundation. At its October 19 fete, the eight-year-old foundation celebrated its expansion into…
Pot Papers: Not in Our Neighborhood Sorry, but the truth is yes — in your neighborhood: As a Hispanic, my attention was drawn to Humberto Guida’s article “The Preppie Pot Papers” (October 24) because Cubans were named as dope dealers. I wanted to read what this Humberto Guida had to…
The Rosenberg Resurrection We shall return him to the film festival — or else: In Brett Sokol’s recent “Kulchur” column about the crisis at the Miami Gay and Lesbian Film Festival (“They Shoot Divas, Don’t They?” October 10), he wrote that “…not just the gay community, but the entire city…
In the heady idealism of the 1970s, Chilean novelist and playwright Ariel Dorfman wrote How To Read Donald Duck, a treatise against cultural imperialism. The cuddly little creatures in Disney movies and other kiddie tales, so the argument goes, send the message that Europe and the United States are civilized…
Before the gangsta, there was the guapo — the tough guy who cruised the mean streets of Spanish Harlem and El Bronx with a wide-brimmed hat cocked over one eye and a razorblade hidden in his pocket. In the Seventies the urban Latin sound was salsa, and there was nothing…
My last column, “Smiling Through the Apocalypse,” split its popularity strictly along age lines: Seniors like me, and mature women, thought it was funny in a sardonic way; young dudes (like the Broward-Palm Beach NT calendar editor Dan Sweeney) took offense, feelings hurt at being indirectly called “slackers” for not…
After several long weeks immersed in the depressing subject of Miami’s world-class poverty, I found some relief in the final article of New Times’s two-part series “We’re Number One!” (September 26 and October 3). Titled “A Few Good Ideas” and compiled by staff writers Rebecca Wakefield and Tristram Korten, the…
Mutant Writer Spews Gibberish Fiendish free weekly creates journalistic Frankenstein: The once friendly, sober, and decorous Frank Alvarado of Miami Today and the Daily Business Review joins New Times and appears to have been psycho-surgically transmuted into a caustic, trash-talking Hunter Thompson wannabe named Francisco Alvarado, a snappy pseudo-hipster with…
