South Beach Nightclubs: The Verdict Velvet ropes? Flashy bling bling? Uninspired music? It’s very unhip: In response to Mosi Reeves’s “Life After WMC” (May 6), I’m a house DJ from New Jersey who moved here just a couple of months ago. When I first arrived I was excited to go…
The fairy-tale rehabilitation of the Sony Music Building from architectural eyesore to Miami Beach’s version of Manhattan’s Flatiron skyscraper is part of Lincoln Road lore. “I said, ‘This could be an amazing place,'” developer Mera Rubell, who purchased and renovated the building, told Variety magazine in 1999. In those days,…
Through a Shot Glass, Hazily Free weekly opens bureau in Tallahassee saloon: Giddy would be the word to describe Rebecca Wakefield’s “Welcome to Fabulous Tallahassee” (April 22). While she was soaking up the atmosphere like a schoolgirl at her first prom, she missed the story: The Miami-Dade delegation is losing…
Now six years old, Miami’s annual Argentine Festival has established a few traditions: the tango tent, the mini-soccer field, frenzied chanting between acts by bottle-blond bombshells waving blue and white flags, prolonged jams by straight-ahead rockers Los Piojos to the cultlike adulation of 10,000-plus fans, and a slowly emptying amphitheater…
The David Foster Wallace-footnote-length sponsorship signatures of Pollo Tropical and the Community Foundation of Broward. Referring to traffic snarl spotter Maritza Martin as “M Squared.” Joseph Cooper. Any given broadcast hour of WLRN-FM (91.3) has The Bitch reaching for the Vicodin bottle, but the station’s recent fundraising drive had the…
“On tomorrow’s Meet the Press, Green Party leader Ralph Nader will announce whether he will sit out the 2004 election or enter the race and cause George Bush to win by three votes. I think I speak for a lot of people when I say: Stay home, nerd. You’re the…
Political Junkie Thought He’d Seen It All The zany, the surreal, the true Tallahassee, but then along came this: My first experience with the Florida legislature was in 1973, when I worked as an aide to Sen. Sherman Winn from Miami. For the next twenty years I watched the process…
You probably think parking valets, the spry soldiers of the asphalt who park and fetch your vehicles amid heat, humidity, and Hummer-size hubris, get to keep the five- and ten-dollar bills you slip into their palms. How nice it is, you think, to be a fat-cat lawyer or big-time hoodlum…
I Remember Papa Doc And I can tell you something about Aristide: Tristram Korten’s story about Haiti was well written — and also accurate (“Guns and Haiti,” April 15). I am a U.S. citizen who spent 35 years, off and on, living in Haiti. My family moved there in 1958…
Robert Moehling, the “Robert” of Robert Is Here, the landmark produce stand southwest of Homestead, considers himself an animal lover. In back of his store is a large pen, shelter to numerous lizards, goats, chickens, and tortoises. But he has no love for the pack of dogs that has been…
Persecution and Profits Why let a little torture stand in the way of cold cash? Great article by Kirk Nielsen on selling cattle to Cuba (“Cows to Cuba,” April 8). It appears that Mr. John Parke Wright IV, like many other capitalists, does not mind profiteering from the Western Hemisphere’s…
“When a girl quits here, what does she say? Sexual harassment!” groans Gil Dezer with a dismissive shake of his head. “When a guy quits here, what can he say? Ultimately he’s looking for money too. So he’s going to throw as much at the wall to see what sticks…
When the Beastie Boys asked, “Professor, what’s another word for pirate’s treasure?” artist Daniel Fila knew the answer: booty. Early this past December, when thousands of collectors, curators, and critics descended on Miami for Art Basel, more than just the creations housed within the walls of galleries and the Miami…
There’s no school today. Still 70 or so teachers from various public schools in Miami-Dade County show up at the Miami Children’s Museum auditorium on a Friday morning for a free music education workshop. “We’re going to be traveling around the world today through music,” promises Emi Gittleman, director of…
Miami: Third World Role Model Thanks to upstanding leaders like Ralph Arza: I read the great article by Rebecca Wakefield about state Rep. Ralph Arza over and over and over, and I could not believe how deep is the corruption within our system (“Meet Mr. Arza,” March 25). I thought…
“You know what I like about my life?” muses Gil Dezer with an ear-to-ear grin. “How many 29-year-olds do you know who can pick up the phone and get Trump on the other end?” Dezer leans back from the wrap-around desk in his 31st-floor office at Sunny Isles Beach’s $600…
Maybe pink really is the new black. In Little Havana’s Latin Quarter it seems pastels are now de rigueur, at least for building façades. Black is not only out in the LQ but, supposedly, illegal. The exterior in question belongs to Borders Picture Framing and Gallery, which is located in…
It’s not often that the U.S. military and the music industry go looking for salvation in the same central Texas city — particularly one whose unofficial motto, plastered on bumper stickers and T-shirts, is “Keep Austin Weird.” But there was Maj. Gen. Pete Chiarelli, commander of the U.S. Army First…
Behind the Scenes at Miami-Dade Public Schools Weird dealings, Ralph Arza, and other scary things: In response to Rebecca Wakefield’s article about state Rep. Ralph Arza (“Meet Mr. Arza,” March 25), I say thank God for New Times and especially for Ms. Wakefield’s ability to investigate and write. Her stories…
Miami-Dade mayoral hopeful José Cancela says that as far as he’s concerned, developer Lowell Dunn, Sr., is unforgiven after a February meeting ended with Dunn handing Cancela a fistful of dollars. Cancela says Dunn, best known for never-ending legal battles over his plan to develop the environmentally sensitive Madden’s Hammock,…
Coming Soon: My Bundle of Joy When I announced I wanted natural childbirth, they freaked: I am eight months pregnant. Like the women in Celeste Fraser Delgado’s article “Cuts You Up” (March 18), I have been greatly troubled by how many of my friends and co-workers in this area have…
Every few years the cultural margins throw up an album that suddenly clears the air, announcing not just a new Zeitgeist but a fresh generation of music consumers coming of age. Critics scramble to evaluate the new sonic terrain while record company executives begin frantically waving contracts in the presumed…
