The Overtown Optimist Club Rattlers have practiced here since 1993. They’ve won four national championships and produced not only model citizens but astounding athletes. For example, there’s former Rattler Dave Thomas, a cornerback who earned a Super Bowl ring with the New York Giants. Then there’s Ben Hanks, who played…
Wrestling to the Top That junk is fake: Local wrestler Ernest Valdes’ dreams of getting to the top of the WWE are understandable (“Contender,” Allie Conti, September 11), but I don’t understand how so many people can still tune in to watch pro wrestling. It’s a competition between grown-ass men…
It should surprise no one that the domestic-violence case of Baltimore Ravens’ star running back Ray Rice blew up in the NFL’s face. Professional sports leagues operate in an alternate reality where misdeeds go unpunished until video or audio evidence surfaces. League Commissioner Roger Goodell and Ravens President Dick Cass…
After football practice at Overtown’s Williams Park each day, 13-year-old wide receiver Gerald Johnson walks off the grassy field with sweat sluicing down his forehead. “Bye, Fat Albert,” his buddies call. That’s Gerald’s nickname, even though he’s skinny as a twig. He tucks soggy shoulder pads into a bag and…
Uncle Luke, the man whose booty-shaking madness made the U.S. Supreme Court stand up for free speech, gets as nasty as he wants to be for Miami New Times. This week, Luke explains why the NFL is out of control. It should surprise no one that the domestic-violence case of…
Things aren’t what they seem at Basil Park, the airy 4-month-old bistro in Sunny Isles Beach. A dollop of sour cream atop some tacos has no dairy. It’s made from cashews soaked overnight in water, pur�ed with yeast and live bacteria, and then fermented for 12 hours to create a…
Now that the NFL season is finally underway, it’s time for the sports media to leave football player Michael Sam the hell alone. Since he came out in February, the press hasn’t stopped harping on the fact that Sam is the first openly gay player to make it to the…
The Art of a Heist Matisse who?: I really want to see the people who actually believe the stolen Henri Matisse painting at the center of an international police search is really worth $4 million (“Vanishing Point,” Michael E. Miller, September 4). I can’t swing a dead cat without hitting…
In a low-slug strip mall near Krome Avenue in Homestead, the steel-and-glass front door of La Michoacana Paleter�a y Never�a swings open into an orange-and-gray-tiled shop. A half-dozen flat-screen TV sets blare Spanish-language news and telenovelas as you make your way to a long display case holding row after row…
Uncle Luke, the man whose booty-shaking madness made the U.S. Supreme Court stand up for free speech, gets as nasty as he wants to be for Miami New Times. This week, Luke addresses the media’s obsession with the NFL’s first openly gay player. Now that the NFL season is finally…
The rust-hued gravy enveloping tender, slightly gamey braised rabbit is a textbook winter dish. The salty bacon matchsticks and tangy, sweet prunes are intensely satisfying, especially paired with a Belgian tripel ale so deeply colored that sunlight doesn’t pass through. But on a Miami summer night, as the thermometer hovers…
Tiny-but-tranquil Miami Shores isn’t often rocked by controversy, but a vote last month that failed to endorse gay marriage has turned neighbor against neighbor. After the North Dade town’s mayor, Herta Holly, and two others killed a resolution in July that would have supported marriage equality, which is bubbling its…
WorldStarHipHop’s The Field: Miami is a must-see video. The documentary is one of the top films about this city ever. It ranks up there with Rakontur’s The U. And I’m not just saying that because I am featured in both movies. The Field: Miami really captures the harsh reality of…
Mother Lode Laugh and a half: Your cover story about the quest to find pyramids in the Everglades (“Raiders of the Lost Swamp, Nathaniel Sandler, August 28) was a good read. If there is an afterlife, those two dead treasure hunters are probably laughing their asses off. It is 40…
Help Blowfly save his house! Give to the Indiegogo campaign by 3 a.m. Eastern time tonight. The following is an account of the strangest routed tour in my 10 years with Blowfly through San Jose, Costa Rica to Baltimore, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Long Branch, New Jersey, Seattle, and in Canada, Victoria…
Uncle Luke, the man whose booty-shaking madness made the U.S. Supreme Court stand up for free speech, gets as nasty as he wants to be for Miami New Times. This week, Luke assesses the upcoming Hurricanes football season. WorldStarHipHop’s The Field: Miami is a must-see video. The documentary is one…
On Labor Day, the University of Miami Hurricanes will begin their season with a game against the Louisville Cardinals, the team that kicked the snot out of them in the Russell Athletic Bowl last December. It’s a great opportunity for head coach Al Golden to set the tone for his…
Will the Real Stitches Please Stand Up? Kendall isn’t tough: Just as I assumed, your story on the questions about “coke-dealing” gangster rapper Stitches (“Unmasking Stitches,” Francisco Alvarado and Allie Conti, August 21) shows he had a rough upbringing in the ghettos of Kendall Lakes or wherever the hell he…
The mom of Steven Sotloff, the 31-year-old American journalist and Pinecrest native whom ISIS has threatened to kill, has issued a moving video begging for her son’s release. In the minute-long video, Shirley Sotloff says: “He is a loyal and generous son and grandson. We have not seen Steven for…
Far beyond Miami International Airport and that tangle of Dolphin Expressway construction traffic, a rising stretch of asphalt threatens to launch you into the sawgrass abyss. Only it doesn’t. The road narrows and curves south, spitting you onto SW 137th Avenue and into a maze of low-slung auburn stucco houses…
Uncle Luke, the man whose booty-shaking madness made the U.S. Supreme Court stand up for free speech, gets as nasty as he wants to be for Miami New Times. This week, Luke assesses the upcoming Hurricanes football season. On Labor Day, the University of Miami Hurricanes will begin their season…
With the primary election set for August 26, there’s a local politician who doesn’t have to worry being voted out office. In June, Dorothy Bendross-Mindingall was one of two Miami-Dade County School Board members automatically re-elected when no one filed to run against them. (Raquel Regalado, daughter of Miami’s Mayor,…
