For nearly a year, county commissioners have been grumbling over efforts by state Rep. Carlos Lacasa to rewrite the county charter and create a strong-mayor form of government. Lacasa had hoped commissioners would give earnest consideration to his suggestions for reform. Instead they snubbed him, derisively informing him that he…
Like the wide Sargasso Sea, Miami seduces. Here float the detritus of Caribbean disaster and dream: deep undercurrents of Africa, mournful melodies of exile, bright promise of prosperity, shark bite of poverty. Many a composer has floundered, fooled by the shimmering surface into believing it a simple thing to harvest…
I Know a Thug When I See One And they don’t always have criminal records: As a former member of the Miami-Dade County Community Relations Board and a former police officer, I found Jim DeFede’s attack on county police director Carlos Alvarez and Police Benevolent Association (PBA) president John Rivera…
Since September 11, local politicians have made efforts to assure us that security at the county’s water-treatment facilities has been dramatically increased. While certainly a prudent course of action, it ignores a far greater danger. The real threat to the county’s water supply doesn’t come from terrorists but from lobbyists…
Spend enough time working in South Beach’s competitive nightlife industry, and you’re bound to make some enemies. Just ask Gerry Kelly. After arriving in Miami in 1994, the Irish-born Kelly spent the next few years cannily rising through the ranks of clubland’s promoters and managers, eventually being hired in 1998…
Don’t Be Unspooled As a Fool As someone who never knew Nat Chediak, I can tell you: The film festival was a wreck! Thanks to Brett Sokol for covering some of the problems associated with this year’s Miami Film Festival, but please don’t let festival director David Poland fool you…
“Over my dead body.” In an odd way it’s an old saying that now works for both John Rivera and Eddie Lee Macklin. The twenty-year-old Macklin was shot and killed last month by a plainclothes Miami-Dade police officer following a Martin Luther King Day celebration in Liberty City. The officer,…
It’s only the second day of the Miami Film Festival, but the event’s new director, David Poland, is already engaged in damage control. After being publicly announced, mysteriously canceled, and then just as cryptically reinstated on the fest’s schedule 24 hours earlier, famed Cuban filmmaker Humberto Solas’s new Miel para…
Openly Biased, Openly Honest You guys are no better than the commies: I read Kirk Nielsen’s article about the Cuban news show Mesa Redonda (“Live from Havana, It’s Mesa Redonda!” January 31) and was impressed with how much the issues he criticized are also true of U.S. media shows. In…
When Juan Carlos Diaz left Gold’s Gym in a snit on January 11, hustled out by Emilio Estefan’s bodyguard Tony Almeida, the frustrated actor/singer/escort/masseur made the rounds of local media outlets. The February 2 issue of Spanish-language gossip weekly TVyNovelas reports that a “very agitated” Diaz showed up to vent…
On Friday, February 15, Steve Shiver will attend a course on ethics. (Insert your own joke here. Let me get you started with a couple of easy ones: “Hey, Martha, get the skates. Looks like Hell is about to freeze over!” or “Steve Shiver taking a class in ethics? What’s…
The Yuks Stop HereRegalado as film critic (funny); wasted millions (not funny): Though I found the article on self-proclaimed movie critic (censor is more like it) and Miami City Commissioner Tomas Regalado quite amusing, I fail to see the humor or the logic of spending millions of taxpayer dollars to…
Not since Nuestra Cosa (Our Latin Thing) — the 1971 film by salsa impresario Jerry Masucci that turned the world on to the Fania All-Stars — has a movie captured the flavor of Nueva York so well as Manito. Director Erik Eason confesses he has never seen the barrio classic…
“When I started taking photographs, people were so open to situations,” Bruce Weber recalls ruefully of his career’s beginnings in the Seventies. The famed fashion photographer spears a forkful of rugelach inside the Rascal House restaurant in Sunny Isles Beach and continues. “You might tell a girl: ‘I think you’re…
The Human Quilt That Is Miami Beach Hizzoner promises 100 percent discrimination-free: As mayor of Miami Beach, I would like to comment on Brett Sokol’s “Kulchur” column regarding efforts to repeal the county’s gay anti-discrimination ordinance (“What a Difference a Bay Makes,” January 17). First let me reiterate the fact…
Ray Milian likes the hour before midnight best. “You don’t have to worry about the dance floor, so you can play all the new stuff,” he explains. “People are just getting in, getting their drinks, and they’re not going to dance no matter what you play.” But then, continues the…
“These people need to stop working my nerves,” Marilyn says sharply, with a dramatic toss of her long blond hair. “I’m serious,” she stresses, taking in Kulchur’s smirk. “Unlike some I could mention” — she motions offhandedly to the Lincoln Road strollers swirling past her sidewalk table outside Score –…
Peekaboo, We See YouWill Miami’s billboards rise to the occasion? Regarding Kirk Nielsen’s “2001: A Billboard Odyssey” (January 10), in a cruel twist of fate, the new noise barriers now being installed along the lower portion of I-95 are going to block the view of several billboards. I can’t wait…
Enrique Iglesias is in trouble. The disc he is lip-synching to skips. “Hero/hero/hero/hero,” he mouths, jerking at the mike until a midget shakes him back on track. A midget? Okay, the singer in the backward baseball cap is not really the atonal Iglesias; it’s star impersonator Julio Sabala. The midget,…
Independence exacts a toll. When Michelle Shocked releases her first CD on her own label, Mood Swing, this spring, nearly six years will have passed since the eclectic singer rallied the Thirteenth Amendment (the one that outlawed slavery) to win her freedom and the rights to all her music from…
On a crisp December morning, more than 1000 firefighters from across the nation lined a half-mile stretch of road leading to a small church in Deer Park, New York. They came to pay their respects to Raymond Downey, the most decorated firefighter in the history of New York City. The…
Miami Housing Officials: Comedy Central’s Newest StarsCheck out their Cheech and Chong imitation — killer! Kirk Nielsen’s story about the City of Miami’s housing loans and the deadbeats who received them (“My Dog Ate the Mortgage — Really!” January 3) points to just one of the many reasons why Miami…
