This is How We Do in the XM2

Menudo has gone through more teenage boys than Sam Adams and Mark Foley combined, but what ever becomes of them once their days of Puerto Rican pop success subsides? Why, they try to get more of that sweet, sweet Puerto Rican pop success, of course. Two members of the band’s…

Airport Director Sets Record Straight

Yesterday, I blogged about Secure Wrap of Miami’s eight year lock on a Miami International Airport contract to wrap travelers’ luggage in a cellophane-type material to deter theft of personal items. The post was based on a recent report by the county’s inspector general criticizing the Miami-Dade Aviation Department for…

Secure No More?

Turns out Miami International Airport bureaucrats aren’t so lazy, just a bit slow at fostering competition. Earlier today, I wrote about the Miami-Dade Aviation Department’s reluctance to competitively bid the baggage-wrapping concession operated by Secure Wrap of Miami, which has held on to the lucrative business for more than eight…

Amazingly, This Race Show Has Gone on 14 Seasons

There have been 14 seasons of The Amazing Race? That is just, kind of, amazing, because I’ve never watched more than five seconds of it at a time. Also, consider that unlike so many other reality shows, The Race has never really contributed a catch phrase or pseudo-celebrity to the…

Throwback Tuesdays: John Cougar – “Miami”

Here’s a great video I found by none other than John Cougar before he added that stupid Mellencamp and ruined everything. This video pioneers the South – Beach – music – video genre and exceeds the quality of almost everything that came after it. Here are the lyrics to the…

Secure Monopoly

Owing to the laziness of Transportation Security Administration and Miami-Dade County Aviation Department bureacrats, a company with a lucrative venture at Miami International Airport won’t be getting any competition anytime soon. For the past eight years, Secure Wrap of Miami has held the exclusive rights to wrap luggage in a …

Dennis Moss Picks Committee Chairs

Dennis Moss is done putting together the new make-up of the county commission’s committees and I’m impressed with most of his selections. In case you don’t know, the commissioners use the committee system to hammer out decisions that ultimately impact our tax dollars, from formulating new ways to tax us…

¿Que Pasa, M.I.A.? Bros Vs. Rockers

The events that happen in childhood shape us, haunt us and turn us into the men and women that will lead the world. It’s sociological science fact. When I borrowed a taped copy of Appetite for Destruction from Enrique Fernandez at age nine, I had no idea that 2 Live…

Diary of an Overtown Pimp, Part 2

In a second entry of the handwritten autobiography he recently wrote in jail, Overtown hustler Big Red talks about an unusual robbery for which he received six years in state prison. He leaves out names and some important details, but offers a peek at a different side of Miami street…

Charlie Pickett & The Eggs Buy Heroin From Overtown

      As long as we’re talkin about Charlie Pickett getting his due, here’s one of the reasons why, this video for the song “Overtown” written by Dave Froshneider and performed by “Charlie Pickett and The Eggs” is some real pioneer shit. Now, I’ll admit it, I hadn’t ever heard of…

Letters from the Issue of January 22, 2009

Omnirific The new mall, just like the old mall: It’s been more than 100 years since poet George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” I thought of that after reading “Midtown Meltdown” (Francisco Alvarado, January 8). I’m referring to the Omni Mall, which…

Diary of an Overtown Pimp

Usually, if a guy calls himself a pimp, he’s using a frat boy Urban Dictionary term for how he’s, like, totally good with the ladies. But when Big Red drops those four letters, he’s talking about the ten-plus years he has spent soliciting females’ bodies for money on the street…

Hope for Overtown

At 11:45 this morning, Jackson Soul Food restaurant at 950 NW Third Ave. was standing-room-only. Overtown and Liberty City residents packed every booth, table, and counter inside the storied and recently  remodeled soul food eatery as they watched President Barack Obama’s inaugural ceremony on three brand-new flat-screen TV sets on…

Miami Beach’s cabbie problem

Georgina Lee has been driving a cab for 32 years. Times have never been tougher for a Beach cabbie, the 55-year-old Cuban American attests. So please excuse her if she’s a bit bent out of shape with the rough treatment she’s been getting from Miami Beach’s finest.”We’re not making any…

South Beach Tunnel Crooks

For the past 28 years, Harold Rengifo has sold natural foods, vitamins, fresh juices, and herbal teas on Miami Beach. Throughout this time Rengifo’s Natural Life Center has operated from various retail locations, most recently at 405 15th Street, a storefront located between Drexel and Washington avenues. Never had a…

¿Que Pasa, M.I.A.? The Best Late-Night Snacks

I like an afterparty as much I like playing Ms. Pacman. But, just like Ms. Pacman, afterparties have no ending. I love Ms. Pacman, but level after level, ghost after ghost — they just keep on, until I die. Afterparties are cool but hour after hour, smoke after smoke –…

Letters from the Issue of January 15, 2009

Iranian Agent Bingo She lies: I don’t for a second believe any of Shahrzad Mir Gholikhan’s lies as described in Deirdra Funcheon’s January 8 story, “The Agent from Iran.” She was a translator — she knew exactly what was being said. These terrorists get away with murder all the time…

Hookah Big One

With a long plastic tube, a Swiss Army knife, and a highlighter, a six-foot five-inch 19-year-old named Big Fern can produce an apparatus that not only yields euphoria but also has the potential to do something truly miraculous: make a bag of Funyuns taste delicious. “Building a bong is easy,”…