Published on December  14th, 2012 in the Miami Herald:

There’s an uninhabited island in Biscayne Bay where a dozen species of birds whoop loudly in the treetops, stingrays nudge the shore, manatees linger and dolphins are a common sight.

It’s called Bird Key. And it’s covered in garbage.

From the waterline deep into the mangroves, there are tires, deck chairs, wood planks, beer cans, plastic bottles, children’s toys, fishing line, shoes, crates, coolers, plastic drums and an endless array of urban debris that Biscayne Bay swallowed up and spat out.

Sitting 500 yards offshore, just south of the 79th Street Causeway, Bird Key is one of Biscayne Bay’s oldest and most ecologically important islands. It was surveyed by the British crown and fought over by early settlers. Investors acquired it, and preservationists covet it. Yet little has been written about the island. And litter has been accumulating there for decades.

To read more, click here.

Published in the August, 2012 issue of the Biscayne Times newspaper:

On a sweltering summer night in 1954, Frank Sinatra swaggers into a plush nightclub on Biscayne Boulevard. America is booming. Miami is its ritzy, neon-lit playground. And Sinatra has the world on a string.

He struts over to the bar, where his pals Dean Martin, Jackie Gleason, and Arthur Godfrey are drinking with tanned showgirls. He orders a Jack on the rocks, loosens his silk tie, and settles in to watch the stage show. Several drinks later, he’s onstage too, snapping his fingers and belting out his latest hits with the house band. It’s Miami in the Fabulous 50s and impromptu performances by Ol’ Blue Eyes are part of what gives the town its glamour.

Where those legendary performances took place, however, has been misreported and wrongly promoted in the decades since Sinatra and his cuff-linked crew left the scene.

To read more, click here.

Published on May 5th, 2012 in the Miami Herald:

Everyone said I would need a gun.

I already had the canoe. I bought it off a guy named Del in Hollywood for $150. His ad on Craigslist said he wanted $300. But when I went to his house, he dropped the price.

“Is it stable?” I asked.

Del shrugged, then offered to throw in a life vest.

I strapped the canoe to the roof of my car and named it Calypso, after the ship of explorer Jacques Cousteau, my childhood idol. But I couldn’t explore the world’s oceans like Jacques. I don’t have that kind of time or money.

Instead, I took a week off work to circumnavigate Miami-Dade County via its canals. It would take four days. I would sleep on the canal banks, under bridges, in parks, in vacant lots—wherever I could find.

I was warned about what I’d run into: corpses, alligators, toxic sludge, criminals, crazies and chupacabras.

But it sounded great. I wanted a bad journey and a good story. I wanted to come home sunburned, starving, exhausted and with some kind of infection.

I bought a waterproof backpack, a flashlight, mosquito repellent and a few other supplies.

The only thing missing, everyone agreed, was a gun.

To read the full story in the Miami Herald, click here (pdf).

To hear the radio broadcast, click the NPR logo below.

Broadcasted January 26th, 2012 on South Florida’s NPR station, WLRN:

Bailey was a fighting dog. A pit bull. But when he crawled out from under a parked car in Little Haiti last year, he didn’t look very tough. He looked like he’d had enough.

Bailey was about two years old. He kept his head low to the ground when he walked. He had big, brown bloodshot eyes, three missing claws, a half dozen bite marks, and an ugly collection of red scars. I could count his ribs.

I only knew one thing about pit bulls: they were dangerous. But Bailey seemed desperate. So I put out food and water and sat on my porch steps to watch him eat. He scarfed the meal up into his powerful jaws, then came over, licked me up to my elbows, and fell asleep with his big head on my feet.

To hear the radio broadcast, click the NPR logo:

Published in the October, 2011 issue of the Biscayne Times newspaper:

South Florida has a dream. A dream that one day every tri-county resident will be able to ride a commuter train along the coast from downtown Miami up to West Palm Beach, hopping on and off in neighborhoods along the way. A dream that Amtrak will travel that same route, stopping in major cities from Miami to Jacksonville before continuing on to northern states. A dream that freight trains, loaded with containers from new, super-size ships, will rumble out of the Port of Miami for the first time in years.

One of those dreams will soon come true. The other two will need time and lots of money. Continue reading →

Published in the July, 2011 issue of the Biscayne Times newspaper:

When Rene Martinez opens the front door of his house, he sees nothing but cars. From the back door, it’s the same view. In fact, no matter which window or door he looks out of, the scenery is the same. That’s because his home sits in the middle of a 200-car parking lot.

“I’m in love,” says Martinez. “I’m in my spot. What goes on around me, I don’t care. I’m happy.”

Straddling the border between Little Haiti and Buena Vista, Martinez’s house was once part of a subdivision that included nearly 100 homes and stretched from N. Miami Avenue to NE 2nd Avenue, and from NE 50th Terrace to NE 53rd Street. The neighborhood was middle-class Anglo for most of the last century, then shifted demographics in the 1970s and 1980s, when thousands of refugees from Haiti and Cuba arrived. And while the neighborhood is still distinctly Caribbean, Martinez’s block looks more like an asphalt sandbar, with his house sitting alone in the parking lot like a two-story metaphor for the passage of time. Continue reading →

Read in front of a live audience in Miami and broadcasted on June 4th, 2011 on South Florida’s NPR station, WLRN:

“In Miami, sex is always just around the corner.” Those are the words of my Cuban friend José. Not too long ago I found sex in Hialeah, literally, on a corner.

Rosa was an older woman, probably in her fifties. She sold cold bottles of water at a busy intersection in a part of Miami that never makes it into travel brochures. She was a beauty once. You could see that in the way she carried herself, like a woman who was used to being looked at. But Rosa had lived a hard life. That was obvious, too. The sun had done its work on her skin. Her long hair was going gray. Her body had rebelled a long time ago.

To read more, click here. To hear the radio broadcast, click the NPR logo below:

Published in the February, 2011 issue of the Biscayne Times newspaper:

The streets are lined with stout glass towers, perfect palm trees planted in perfect rows, private boat slips, golf courses, jogging paths, faux-Mediterranean townhomes, and all the usual emblems of an upscale, South Florida suburban community. This is Aventura, an unmistakably American version of paradise where stray foliage doesn’t stand a chance, zoning codes seem like scripture, and residential enclaves boast more security than a South American drug ranch. As one of Miami-Dade County’s youngest and most successful municipalities, Aventura has been featured in international magazines, hosted presidential candidates, courted celebrities, and is regularly touted as the City of Excellence.

Such cachet did not grow spontaneously. Aventura’s image of luxury and prestige has been skillfully crafted and professionally marketed since before the city even had a charter of its own. However, some say the Aventura brand has been so heavily promoted and protected over the years — by developer-backed marketers and image-conscious government administrators — that troublesome civic issues are often whitewashed, critics sidelined, and small-business owners left without a voice. Continue reading →

Published in the June, 2010 issue of the Biscayne Times newspaper:

On the quiet Oleta River in North Miami Beach, where tall mangrove forests grow along the ancient shorelines and block out the noise of the city beyond, a nine-person crew sits in a long, hand-painted boat, waiting for an order. Bent forward, arms poised at the ready, their fists clench long wooden paddles. A steersman, standing at the stern, grips the skiff’s rudder by the handle and issues his command: “Go!”

The crew lets loose, plunging their paddles into the murky water, using the strength of their upper bodies to push their 40-foot Chinese dragon boat upriver. The vessel glides along at an impressive speed, each paddler pummeling the water in sync until, 250 meters along, the steersman calls for an intermission. “Let it ride!” he yells.

The paddles come up, the paddlers catch their breath, and peace returns to the winding waterway — until they repeat the drill moments later.

Every weekend the scene plays out the same way. The Puff Dragon Boat Racing Team (Puff, for short) races their dragon up and down the placid Oleta until — as they like to say — they’ve drained their tanks. Continue reading →

100 years later, Jacques Cousteau is still captain of our imaginations.
June 11th, 2010

He was a portrait of grace, a symbol of adventure, a mythical-looking figure in a red wooly cap. Born one hundred years ago today, famed French explorer Jacques Cousteau remains as relevant and iconic as he was during his illustrious lifetime — especially to the millions of fans who grew up watching his high-sea adventures unfold on their TV screens.

For those of us who were children in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, one of the great and simple images to which our hearts first opened was that of Cousteau traversing the world’s oceans in his ship Calypso. He and his team of charismatic explorers called on foreign ports that we couldn’t visit ourselves, discovered ancient sites that we knew only from dreams, and lived life in a limitless way that few of us will ever experience. Continue reading →

Published in the March 5th, 2010 issue of The Lead newspaper:

Artist Franklin Sinanan delivered six paintings and one sculpture to Miami Beach City Hall early last month. His work was put on display there as part of a Black History Month art exhibit.

Since dropping off his artwork, however, Sinanan has revisited City Hall twice to remove pieces the city later decided were inappropriate.

Born in Trinidad and raised in Canada, Sinanan’s work has taken on a distinct Afro-Caribbean flair since moving to Miami two years ago. “In Canada,” he says, “my work never looked like this. It was just a lot of white faces.”

Now, some people are afraid to step into his Lincoln Road studio because of the voodoo-like elements in his work. He’s been called a witch doctor. Some visitors ask to be healed. One woman wanted his blessing to help help her land a large sum of money. Continue reading →

Published in the March, 2010 issue of Miami Art Guide magazine:

Like many artists who ply their trade in studios, warehouses, and garages around the world, David Zalben says it’s not about the money. It’s about connecting with people. “Every day I’m here is an opportunity to meet somebody new. It’s not just about making a sale.”

And if Zalben were a solitary artist, in a lonely studio, in some godforsaken part of town, his social appetite might seem strange. But Zalben’s tidy, little workspace is on Lincoln Road, Miami Beach’s famed pedestrian thoroughfare, where every year thousands of people stroll, and strut, amidst stores, restaurants, and clubs.

Tucked into a two-storey, 1930’s-era, art deco building, Zalben’s studio has no street-level presence. He shares the partitioned, former department store with 27 other emerging artists. 13 more work in a similar building just down the street. They all pay very little in rent, help each other along, and enjoy the kind of exposure only dreamed of by most visual artists.

What makes for such favorable artistic conditions?: ArtCenter / South Florida, a 25-year-old non-profit aimed at doing everything one organization can possibly do to advance the knowledge of contemporary art in Miami.

To read more, click here.

He didn’t like drugs or gangs or violence — he liked pretty girls, and that may have killed him.

Published in the January, 2010 issue of the Biscayne Times newspaper:

Photo illustration by Silvia Ros and Marcy Mock.

The days when Miami was awash in cocaine, cash, and bullet-riddled bodies are over. Today art gallery owners likely outnumber drug lords, and running gun battles are far less common than book fairs, art festivals, music conferences, and fashion shows. What was once the nation’s murder capital is now a well-branded cultural Mecca.

So just over a year ago, when the body of 18-year-old high school senior Alex Tillman was found beside the FEC railway tracks in Wynwood, the killing seemed reminiscent of an earlier decade, when violent criminals and cartel hit men committed scores of equally brutal slayings.

At the time of Tillman’s death, local news outlets made a point to mention that he had no criminal record and no involvement with drugs or gangs — declarations made necessary, apparently, because he was from Overtown, where most murders are still drug-related.

Indeed Tillman didn’t fit the profile of someone whose life was likely to end in criminal violence. His murder, friends and family suspect, was likely motivated by something else altogether — jealousy.

To read more, click here.

Published in the September, 2009 issue of the Biscayne Times newspaper:

Miami art collectors Carlos and Rosa de la Cruz are well along in the construction of their expansive new Design District museum that will showcase their world-renowned collection of contemporary art. It is scheduled to open in time for Art Basel Miami Beach in December. And although their art may be new, across the street from their building, where they’re planning a parking lot, they are dealing with something much, much older: oak trees.

Two 80-foot-tall Southern Live Oaks, estimated to be nearly 100 years old, rise from the soil like living monuments at the rear of the vacant lot at 28 NE 41st St., their wide evergreen canopies casting precious shadows over this corner of a sun-blasted city. Miami, in fact, is ranked among the worst in the nation for tree canopy. “Born” in the early part of the last century, the twin oaks have matured with the neighborhood as it went from agricultural seclusion to mid-century ritz to drug-ravaged slum and finally to its present incarnation as the Design District, one of Miami’s most vibrant commercial areas.

Those two stately oaks, however, may soon fall to the chainsaw.

To read more, click here.

* October ’09 follow-up story here: The 41st Street Oaks Live to See Another Day

Published in the Aug/Sept 2009 issue of ‘Social Affairs’ magazine:

Given a chance to travel back in time, most people would choose to visit some pivotal or alluring period in human history—Classical Greece, Galilee in the era of Jesus, the Renaissance, or Victorian England, perhaps. But Tito and Che-Frio, two dim-witted and equally untalented Miami musicians, are drawn to a much more recent era—the year 2002.

In those innocent, early days of the 21st century, people knew nothing of Bluetooth, camera phones, or the TV series Lost. More importantly, Reggaeton, that vigorous, hyper-sexualized stepchild of hip-hop and dancehall, had yet to come rumbling like a busload of lustful insurgents onto the North American music scene.

To read more, click here.

Published in the March, 2009 issue of the Biscayne Times newspaper:

Photo by Silvia Ros

Not far from Biscayne Boulevard, outside his ramshackle home just north of the 79th Street Causeway drawbridge, Omar Ali is slumped in a folding chair, his thin frame draped in well-worn canvas work clothes, his face turned toward the sun. He’s listening to Classical FM radio over a pair of loudspeakers, fidgeting with an unlit cigarette, and watching an osprey obsessively circling the sun-sparkled waters of Biscayne Bay that stretch before him.

The bird swoops down, talons outstretched, and with a soft splash, snatches a fish from the water. It rises, shakes off the water from its plunge, and glides over to a rotting wooden pylon to feast on its writhing prey. Ali smiles. He lifts the cigarette to his mouth, almost lights it, but stops. It’s the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, smoking is forbidden during daylight hours, and he’ll have to wait until sunset to break his daily fast.

But the 54-year-old Egyptian metal sculptor isn’t focused on his hunger or nicotine craving right now. He’s mostly thinking about the five-ton, stainless-steel sculpture towering 25 feet over his head, casting a strange, twisted shadow over his Shorecrest property and, more figuratively, over his life. Continue reading →

Published in the January, 2009 issue of the Biscayne Times newspaper:

Photo by Silvia Ros.

You’re trapped in your metal box, shipwrecked with a throng of cheerless humanity on a soulless stretch of I-95 or Biscayne Boulevard, somewhere between Aventura and downtown Miami, and the traffic is creeping along at glacial speed. On some days, you can almost feel the hours of your life leaching out and you wonder how it is that America’s playground became America’s parking lot.

A set of railway tracks appears, sometimes snaking alongside the Boulevard, sometimes striking off into the urban jungle. Only rarely do you see a train on them. And again you begin to wonder: What if a passenger train rode those rails? What if you could save yourself time, money, gas, and frustration, gliding to your Brickell office on rails instead of drowning in this slow-moving river of steel?

If the Florida Department of Transportation has its way, and gets enough money, that vision could become a reality. The state, like much of the nation, wants to turn back the clock and revive the greatly neglected passenger-rail industry. Continue reading →

Published by the The Writer magazine, January, 2009:

Literary agent Taryn Fagerness of the Sandra Dijkstra Agency recently lectured at Miami Dade College in downtown Miami about the best way to approach an agent. She graciously dished out advice to aspiring writers during a four-day literary event hosted by the Florida Center for the Literary Arts.

Here’s what she had to say:

To read more, click here.