If you’ve ever found yourself stuck in I-95’s snarl, gazing with envy as a television news helicopter whipped past overhead, take comfort in Dave Slater’s anger. Before he retired in 1996 as a traffic reporter for both WPLG-TV (Channel 10) and WIOD-AM (610), Slater spent nearly twenty years flying above…
Many faithful — okay, a few faithful readers of The Bitch have written to inquire about an earlier reference to throwing gang signs. Some have expressed a desire to get in on the bandanna-happy action. So here is some lowdown: Before the deployment of complex gang greetings may commence, one…
Sure Sign of a Wise Leader Knowing when to call it quits: Brett Sokol hits the nail on the head in his “Kulchur” column about Miami-Dade mayoral candidate Maurice Ferré (“Ego Without End,” June 17). It was a great piece about a has-been who doesn’t know when to stop. Obviously…
The amount of research and study that has been brought to the subject of “the eternal battle between good and evil” in the 21st Century is truly amazing. It seems to overflow from the pages of university dissertations, newspapers, popular psychology books, and comic books with such spellbinding regularity that…
Pipe Dreams vs. Harsh Reality Simply put, the Star of Miami ain’t gonna happen: If I were Jewish, I’d say, “Oy vey!” But I’m Italian so I’ll say, “Fuhgeddaboutit.” While Kirk Nielsen’s article “Aqua Nova” (June 10) regarding Roberto Behar and Rosario Marquardt’s plans for the Henry Flagler monument and…
“This is it. I am done.” — Maurice Ferré, announcing the end of his political career after decisively losing the Miami-Dade County mayoral race in September 1996 “I’m finished. I’m no longer a candidate for anything.” — Ferré, after losing the City of Miami mayoral race in November 2001 “Hey,…
In her abundant spare time, The Bitch has been thinking of ways to entertain herself while annoying others this summer, and has decided to adopt the following affectations: 1. Pretending to smoke Nat Sherman’s clove cigarettes. 2. Developing and deploying a complex personal gang sign. 3. Angrily demanding that people…
A Family in Perfect Harmony It’s the Lord’s work, and the Lord loves pedal steel guitars: I am the eldest daughter of the Lee family (the one next door to Mom) and am writing to say how much I enjoyed reading John Anderson’s story about steel guitars and the music…
As rip currents swept unsuspecting swimmers out to sea along the Miami Beach coast two weeks ago, a couple of lifeguards went mano a mano during a workout session gone awry. According to a tale told to the sun-averse Bitch by a retired leathery lifeguard, Vince Andreano, captain of the…
It’s hardly surprising that Micky Arison wrote out a $2000 check to President George W. Bush’s re-election campaign. After all, last year the Carnival Corporation CEO and Miami Heat owner cashed in $66.1 million of his cruise line’s stock, on top of receiving another $90 million in stock dividend payments…
Best Magic City Reunion Hell’s flames reignite passion: Kudos on the annual Best of Miami issue (May 13)! I always look forward to it with great anticipation. I inevitably find some cool restaurant, club, something new to check out … but ay dios mio! Who is that hottie with the…
A Grateful Mother, a Lost Son And a crime unsolved: Bill Jensen’s article about my late son RJ Lockwood (“Hardcore and Bleeding,” May 20) was great except for one thing: I didn’t see the sentence for people who want to help to contact me or law-enforcement authorities. I also didn’t…
The Bitch has been thinking and cannot come up with one single reason why it would possibly ever be okay to drive a Boeing 747 up and down the boulevards of our municipality. The 100-plus decibels made by the airbus are nonetheless commonplace in Miami, courtesy of legions of “motorcycle…
With whiskey-warmed, Factory-fab openings (even by post-Basel standards); connectedness in the art, fashion, and nightclub worlds; favorable mentions in Art in America and the recent coup of being host to the traveling exhibit William John Kennedy Meets Andy Warhol at 231 East 47 St… 1964, times seemed flash for the…
Club Kids: Rude, Crude, and Stoopid Exactly the kind of jerks who do disgusting things in your front yard: What a nasty little article by Humberto Guida. In his “BuzzIn” column about the Miami Beach City Commission meeting that considered changes in nightlife regulations (“Party Poopers,” May 13), his pen…
The cinnabar landscape is littered with the carcasses of ‘roos and koalas … no, wait, that’s the Australian Outback. The Bitch had the vastness of the barren expanse confused momentarily with that of the wasteland known as the Coconut Grove retail district, which includes the epitome of the void, CocoWalk…
Police officers call it stalking. Kulchur, however, prefers the term “field research.” So let’s just split the difference and say that for the second time in as many months, President George W. Bush’s chief advisor, Karen Hughes, was a bit, er, concerned over Kulchur’s extreme dedication to the craft of…
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…
