Time to party like it's 1776.
Over at the Night & Day calendar, the Magic City Kitty and I constructed a "perfect day" of kickin' it on Uncle Sam's birthday, but we're so excited about the National holiday that our bras are freaking exploding...
...and we just had to list a few more:
Post a Comment
There was a bit of levity outside the courthouse, however, something that could only happen in Miami. At around 2 p.m., on a postage-stamp-sized patch of grass, a plump, white rooster with a red crest happily snacked on bread crumbs as suited-up lawyers and thug-looking defendants paraded by.
"It's a fat one," remarked a woman in Spanish. "Good for soup!" She then tossed him part of an arepa.
The white rooster eventually crossed the street and foraged under a bush, with two other handsome, green roosters. Courthouse veterans say the roosters are frequent visitors to the justice building's entrance. --Tamara Lush
As we drove down Okeechobee Road toward Club Rancho Grande last Saturday, my friend started recalling the last time she was there: She got stuck in traffic for an hour, she remembered, because a gunshot victim was being airlifted from the rancho next door. That was Rancho Gaspar, site of more than one act of violence (a body was found on the rural road leading to the club in 2001), which has since closed.
What is a rancho? It seems to be a Hialeah thing, a nostalgic throwback to Cuba. Basically it is an outdoor barn-type arrangement with food, drink, dancing, and sometimes even pony rides. After turning off of Okeechobee onto a rutted dirt, we passed mataderos offering lechon-slaughtering services, pens of goats and geese, and at least one cow. In spite of a thorough frisking at the door, Club Rancho Grande seemed to attract a non-violent -- though scantily-dressed -- crowd.
Gnawing on rabo encendido, trying desperately not to think about the fact that I seemed to be eating 100 percent beef fat (it tasted good), I spent the rest of the evening watching the people who didn't grow up in the Midwest dance salsa and bachata. One kind, elderly gentlemen took pity on me and kindly guided me to the dance floor, where I proceeded to step on his toes for the course of an entire song. It was a fun night. --Emily Witt
New Times arrived on the scene in a bullet proof vest, coming just off of a Purple Haze-guided tour of Opa-Locka to find a room of about 25 salty aficionados buying raffle tickets and crossing their fingers in the anticipation of free yeast and hops.
Sunlight shone freely through the open front and back doors and the smell of spilled beers cemented the atmosphere of an ancient Irish public house. Curious patrons stood idly by while every brewer in the southern half of the peninsula agonized over beery minutia —turning up noses, slurping measured sips and getting progressively more merry.
Tables located at the center of the room abounded with reject bottles: everything from coconut stouts to lychee meads.
The Miami Area Society of Homebrewers took six gold medals, six silvers and four bronzes. (This reporter's H.R. Chubbykins III Esq. Southern English Brown Ale took a gold medal in its category).
While Best in Show went to a man from West Palm Beach for his Coconut Heffeweizen, the Miami Area Soceity of Homebrewers will maintain the Coconut Cup (a middling wooden trophy) at the Titanic for yet another year. --Calvin Godfrey
At 86 feet, the tallest mast at the downtown marina (site of Strictly Sail Miami, the "all-sail" show) belonged to a gorgeous, teaked-out, 54-footer. The Hanse 540e was being tended to by my brother and one of the partners in his St. Petersburg-based boat detailing business, Sunfish Marine. The vessel gleamed in the twilight, newly painted with a coat of Stars & Stripes Blue. You could smell the freshly applied teak oil wafting off its deck long before you caught sight of the boat.
Hanse is headquartered in Greifswald, Germany, a port town where (according to company literature) "boats have been built since 1361." But the company's push into American waters is new; like the rest of East Germany, the company and its hometown only recently shook off the chains of communist rule.
The 540e on display at Miamarina is Model No. 1, and goes for a mere $600,000 — a steal in boat show circles. (At last year's show, a sailboat sold for $2.7 million.) This puppy has an epoxy hull, whatever that means, and a self-tacking jib (ditto). I'm no boat expert, but it looked and smelled good to me, especially the cherry wood-infused interior.
On a recent night, I was out on the beach, pickling my ginger a bit with an oversized bottle of High Life, when I saw two men walking towards me across the sand. I had just stashed the bubbly when they got to me and asked for a cigarette in Spanish. I said I didn't have one -- in Spanish.
That was okay, apparently, because the taller of the two said, "I'll sit down here, okay?" and plopped himself down on the beach chair next to me. The other guy slowly sprawled himself on his back on the sand. Apparently they weren't drunk - they were just really, really tired.
What the hell, I thought, and scooted over, retrieved the bottle, and passed it.
Their names were Octavio and Rixi, they said, and they're illegal immigrants, migrant laborers; Rixi's from Honduras, and Octavio is from Nicaragua. They have family there, and they came here - like a whole hell of a lot of people - to make some money doing shitty work before going back to their families.
Octavio told me a great story about how he got here. He snuck from Guatemala to Oaxaca by boat, stashed in the compartment below deck. He said the waves made his intestines (or some internal organ) fly up into his throat, and he began to fear his demise. "Yo soy valiente, yo soy hombre," he explained. "But on that boat, I cried and prayed to God." From Oaxaca, he caught a ride on a bus, jumping out and hiding behind the tires whenever the Mexican authorities stopped for inspection.
The day before Valentine's Day, owner Geraldo Rios is in automaton mode. He keeps the store open 24 hours a day from February 11 to 14 and says he has not slept in days. He scurries around the shop, dodging a customer holding a heart-bedecked stuffed monkey, stripping roses of leaves, shoving a few more birds of paradise into an arrangement before it ships out. Out back is a refrigerated truck on risers almost entirely filled with bouquets. At the front door, two women stand before helium canisters inflating an endless number of metallic heart-shaped balloons. Delivery men carry towering arrangements to their vans.
Trailing a slow-footed reporter behind him, Rios pauses for a sip of colada from the construction workers taking a break across the street. He then unlocks a side door and gestures inside. An ascent up a short stairway reveals a surreal sight: teddy bears, thousands of them, wrapped in plastic bags and placed in rows. They stare glassy-eyed, some paired with a bottle of champagne and glasses. There are white bears and brown ones, bears holding hearts inscribed with love notes in Spanish and English, bears the size of schoolchildren lolling on couches. Bears are piled against the neo-Italianate sculptures Rios uses for wedding flowers, bears line the walls. They are stacked into pyramids, they hang from the guard rail. Resting under a canopy of helium balloons, the second floor of Rios Flowers holds a veritable army of bears, awaiting presentation by strapping men to their cooing, adoring wives and girlfriends.
The next thing I knew, a Miami Beach Police car pulled up to the curb, and a female officer stepped out. "Put down your bike sir, and move over to the car," she declared. I stared at her. "Put down your bike right there," she repeated, "and move over to the car. Now, sir." I was still wearing my helmet.
I leaned the bike against a light post. She told me to put my hands against the car, and started frisking me. "Were you at the pizza place, sir?" she asked as she moved up to the crotch.
"No," I lied. Then, realizing it was true, I practically shouted: "No!"
Another car pulled in and a male officer got out. "You were at the pizza place," he said.
"No I wasn't." I said.
He stared long and hard. "Sorry sir," he said finally, "she's a rookie."
With that, he left. The female officer got in her car.
"Get back on your bike, sir," she barked, and drove off.
A piece of advice for the Miami Beach PD for the next time they catch up with me on the long pedal home: they'd have gotten farther asking where I had been.
No Miami Beach pizzerias contacted by New Times reported a disturbance that night and so far, Miami Beach Police have not responded to inquiries. --Isaiah Thompson
Three hundred guests were expected; tickets cost $5,000 a head, but the journalists didn't need them. On the other hand, the ticket price included cocktails, dinner, a performance by Gloria, and -- an important detail -- access beyond her front gate. The media ticket got you some space by said gate to watch the arrivals.
So that's what we did: as the guests began to trickle across the threshold, the (mostly Spanish-language) TV news crews scanned faces and positioned themselves for celebrities; figuring I wouldn't know a celebrity if one performed a root canal on me (without a mask, of course), I just watched the TV crews.
Rosie O'Donnell appeared — that was exciting.
Expecting Scarface-inspired crime narratives, New Times attended a pre-conference lecture by David Armond, Deputy Director of the Proceeds of Crime unit for Britain's newly-formed Serious Organised Crime Agency, better known by the acronym SOCA (unrelated to West Indian musical genre of Soul-Calypso). Attendees included forensic accountants, an agent from Customs and Border Patrol (with holstered gun), and at least one criminal defense attorney.
