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,…
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…
