Vaclav Havel arrives in Miami on Sunday, as much a visiting rock star as a sainted political leader. The Czech president, who’s jammed with both Lou Reed and Frank Zappa, even has a snazzy tour name for his South Florida jaunt — ready-made for souvenir T-shirts: “Cuba Libre.” And at…
Clickety Clack on Down the Track Seeing America by rail was a privilege, and now it’s lost: Congratulations to John Anderson for researching, writing, and experiencing “The Last Amtrak” (September 12). I grew up (one year old in 1935) making annual summer round trips (always by Pullman) between New York…
Attention aspiring South Beach power brokers: Wanna learn how to game the system like a pro? Hollywood macher Michael Bay was more than happy to provide an easy lesson, schooling one of Kulchur’s clubland spies as she shimmied up to the Bad Boys 2 director inside Lincoln Road’s Rumi lounge…
If You’re So Smart, Go Start Your Own School It’s more work than you’ll ever imagine: New Times should be ashamed of Rebecca Wakefield’s article on Florida International Academy (“Strange Days at FIA,” September 5). Any effort to present a balanced treatment of this embattled charter school was negated by…
Last week, in the days leading up to my father’s funeral, I played Susana Baca’s album Espiritu Vivo (Living Spirit). The beat of the cajon, the wooden box that speaks Afro-Peruvian rhythms, might have seemed incongruous to my brothers and sisters as they sifted through photos of our childhood in…
Give former supermodel Janice Dickinson points for a sense of humor. In her new tell-all memoir No Lifeguard On Duty, the enfant terrible of the late-Seventies fashion world writes: “Models are supposed to be dumb, right? But most of us can actually walk and talk and snort coke at the…
Son, When I Was Your Age… We smoked dope all day, got laid every night, and really really dug the revolution: So I read John Lombardi’s bit on Hunter Thompson and Rolling Stone (“Smiling Through the Apocalypse,” August 22). I take serious offense. First off, how can he talk about…
I think there’s a lot of misconceptions about what goes on at Crescent Moon. I’ve heard about people who’ve been unhappy and moved on, but you rarely hear about the people like me who are happy to work there. I’ve been with Emilio for ten years. I started out as…
Something Is Rotten in the City of Miami Specifically in its police department — and I should know: As one of your most loyal readers, I must say that rarely has an article stirred my emotions as much as Tristram Korten’s “Travail to the Chief” (August 22). After reading it…
Universal language. Universal language. Now that Music Fest Miami appears to be here to stay — a solid annual event — it’s time to trot out the old truism again. Nothing brings people together like music. Just to put the old adage to the test, Shake conducted a brief survey…
Harris Meyer from the Business Review and I were sitting in the leafy part of Piccadilly Garden in the Design District the other night, swatting those big, floaty Miami mosquitos, sloshing ourselves with Bass, and telling journalism war stories. I led with “How I Brought Hunter Thompson to Rolling Stone,”…
My Doggie Tale o’ Woe I told it to a judge who agreed with me: Thanks very much for Mike Clary’s “Puppy Dog Tales” (August 15). I read it with great interest. You see, two years ago I purchased what was represented to be a healthy, purebred English bulldog from…
South Beach isn’t exactly known as a literary mecca, making the standing-room-only crowd inside Lincoln Road’s Books & Books this July evening all the more eyebrow-raising. But then Nick McDonell, the bookstore’s guest of honor, isn’t your typical literary wunderkind. Forget the tweed and horn-rimmed glasses. With his artfully tousled…
Yes, All the World’s a Stage But that doesn’t mean Miami is London: Ronald Mangravite’s commentary on the dearth of theater in Miami was undoubtedly well-intentioned, but his suggestion that the solution lies in making Miami more like other cities that have lots of theater is simplistic, to say the…
If you come down to the river/Betcha gonna find some people who live/You don’t have to worry/Cause you have no money/People along the river are happy to give Park at Tobacco Road and walk down the little hill alongside Associated Photo to Café Nostalgia. Or spring for a Nostalgia valet…
There’s a specter haunting South Beach. Actually it’s just haunting two people: Danny and Tanya, a pair of delicate-looking Cabaret-style blonds affectionately known to their fellow clubland habitués as “the witches.” Given that this threat takes the form of Wanda, one of our burg’s most notorious drag queens, there’s ample…
Wanted: Selfless Public Servants Must be impervious to blunt trauma: Bravo to Rebecca Wakefield and her article about Merrett Stierheim (“Midterm Exam,” August 7). Stierheim is perhaps the hardest-working, least-intimidated, and most upbeat person in South Florida. I would add “one of the smartest,” but you really have to wonder:…
Everything about Substance Recordings is impressive. The snazzy, ultramodern Website. The stark CD cover art. The swank Collins Avenue office. The penetrating gaze and intelligent patter of label head Greg Chin — a striking Chinese-Jamaican transplant who also happens to be the electronic indie’s principal artist, a.k.a. Stryke. The Kingston-born…
Enron, WorldCom … Billboardlive? Amidst a wave of recent staff departures and murmurs of cash-flow difficulties, the mood inside the beleaguered South Beach club is jittery, according to employees both past and present. Of course, intimations of “creative” accounting are nothing new at Billboardlive — they’ve dogged the $20 million,…
Become a Dancer in Three Easy Steps Pump some iron, add some silicone, climb into a cage: After reading Ashley Fantz’s article about nightclub dancers (“Dancing for Dollars,” July 25), I understand why the public in general has such a misconception of dancers. I am a dancer and belong to…
At the newly remodeled warehouse on the banks of the Miami River, a clamp-on construction lamp lights the way up dusty stairs to the nightclub of Pepe Horta’s dreams. When the silver-haired host extraordinaire moved his beloved little Cuban dive — the original Café Nostalgia — from Eighth Street to…
What’s that Little Bird Doing in My Soup? Ummm…the backstroke? Mike Clary has written a great report on the situation surrounding the Cape Sable seaside sparrow and Everglades restoration (“God’s Eye on the Sparrow,” July 18). Those federal agencies and private groups comprising the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Task Force…
