Most County Executives Safe from Budget Cuts

UPDATE: Earlier this week, Miami-Dade County spokeswoman Vicki Mallette responded to my earlier report regarding executive salaries. I apologize to my readers for not posting her response sooner.She insisted that Alvarez is proposing in the budget a ten percent reduction to the county executive offices, which is not reflected in…

Sean Casey’s Ex-Therapist Used Dubious Techniques

Today at 2 p.m., Sean Casey will make his case before Judge John Thornton not to seal secretly recorded conversations the 35-year-old Bostonian had with his former lawyer Milton Hirsch and ex-therapist Michael Rappaport. Casey claims the conversations prove Hirsch and Rappaport lied on the stand when they denied advising…

Letters from the Issue of August 13, 2009

Haters Spaniards stink: What a joke! Is “He Buried Che” (Tim Elfrink, August 6) seriously wasting six pages on this idiot’s story? If Gustavo Villoldo wants “justice,” how did his family of Spanish bloodline come into this fortune to begin with? Taíno Indians inhabited Cuba before the Spaniards enslaved them,…

MP3 of the Day: “Don’t Go” by Induce! and Blu Jemz

Just got this link in my Facebook inbox regarding a track for free download from Blu Jemz and Induce. The track is definitely a little off the beaten path. It features a plodding, eight-bit-style bass line and some funny and ridiculous spoken entreaties to a lost love. The chorus is…

Miami Social: The Importance of Finding Your Inner Whore

Last night, Bravo once again broadcast a world it calls “Miami.” A place where becoming a “fashion designer” is as easy as hiring a kid fresh out of design school to create a line for you. A place where a manipulative, lying, borderline sociopathic lady is worth holding on to…

Anonymous Blogger Targets County Cop

An anonymous blogger named the Straw Buyer has been dedicating a serious amount of bandwidth to bash and ridicule the Miami-Dade Police detective.Apparently, the Straw Buyer became fascinated with Baluja this past October, when the 11-year county cop arrested Coral Gables lawyer Delaila Estefano, John Romney, and Michael Martinez for stealing someone’s identity…

Sean Casey Gets a Hand from a Top Gun

Casey is serving a 12-year prison term for running down and killing an elderly woman in Miami Beach, leaving the scene, and then fleeing the country to avoid prosecution. He has an August 13 court hearing before Judge John Thornton to unseal transcripts of secretly recorded conversations he had with his former criminal defense lawyer, Milton…

MP3 of the Day: Adriana Calcanhotto

Last week Head Spins brought you into the studio of WDNA, site of Gene de Souza’s long-running Café Brasil. As we said in the article, any Brazilian worth his or her weight in music pays a visit to the show when they hit town, and that included Adriana Calcanhotto, who…

Lawsuit Claims Opa-locka Slumlord Stole Thousands While Tenants Died

Residents at Opa-locka’s Gardens Apartments — perhaps the city’s sketchiest property — endured 5 murders, 656 assaults, 34 robberies, 25 shootings, and 80 stolen cars during one four-year stretch, according to police records. And the apartments remain the hottest spot in the city for cops, says Capt. Rex Galindo, a spokesman…

Flyer of the Week: Christian Death at PS14 August 9

It was 1979 and punk was being born again in the glitter-flecked primordial muck of Los Angeles. Late-blooming skinheads and bands like Black Flag, the Circle Jerks, and the Germs were bashing the West Coast hardcore scene into shape, using little more than blunt force. For most fans of aggro…

Local Girl Thought She Could Dance, and Indeed She Could

Contrary to the way it seems, Riptide does not watch every reality TV show. Our TVs are seldom set to anything involving dance, but perhaps we should have caught some So You Think You Can Dance this season, because 18-year-old Miami student Jeanine Mason won. Yes, she did flamenco, the lambada,…