Legal Drag Racing Returns to South Florida!

It's been a long time, probably not since the mid-seventies, but legal drag racing is returning to Miami. This Sunday, you can race your car on an old runway at Opa Locka West Airport. It will cost you $20.00 to race, $10.00 to watch. MVB thinks this is a great idea and applaud the guy who came up with it. If nothing else, it will probably make our streets safer.


Once upon a time, when Verticus was a teenager, he use to race his chariot at a strip north west of Miami Dade College's north campus. For those who aren't aware of it, the north campus was built over an old Navy airfield called Master's Field. You can see the runways gradually disappearing over the years in these aerial photos. Believe it or not, you can still find them-- the south parking lot is basically an old runway.

The drag strip had bleachers on one side of an open field with a runway and a "Christmas tree" timing light and not much else-- including built-in safety devices. I remember some guy brought out a slingshot dragster that after crossing the finish line couldn't stop because it had lost its brakes and its parachute. All the poor driver could do was ride it out-- over the runway, across hip-high grass, smashing through a chain link fence and finally crashing into railroad tracks. He survived, no one ever died out there-- just like the ghosts of all those bright, sunshine filled memories.

You can visit the track's website here.

Introducing Monocle Man

A note from the publisher:

First off, anyone wearing a monocle today should be viewed with suspicion. This gentleman, who wishes to remain anonymous as is a bloggers wont, is not the kind of guy you'd invite to a party. If his 1,000 yard stare doesn't quickly put your shindig into an irreversible slide toward downersville, his jaded, dyspeptic personality soon will. So, dear reader, read his words with caution and a mojito, MVB's drink of choice, in hand.

***********

Really, I'm not as bad as Mr. Erectus made me out to be. Sure, I might wear a monocle, but does that mean I don't eat, sleep, and shit like the rest of you? Perhaps you'd be more forgiving if you knew I was born and raised in Miami and have been living here for over half a century. I've basically seen it all and it has taken its toll on me. My shrink calls me Eeyore, my girlfriend calls me shallow, and my hero Verticus Erectus calls me dyspeptic, but despite those sentiments, I still get up every morning in Miami thinking that today is going to be an improvement on yesterday. That should count for something. Right?

Anyway, my first "observations" for MVB are:

• Since no one else seems to be doing it on a scale that will make an impact, Baptist Health South Florida, the region's largest private employer, and the University of Miami are going to provide affordable housing to attract and retain workers. They will build units on land they own. When the average house price in Dade County is $372,400 and the median family income for a family of four is $55,900, who will build affordable housing for the teachers? The cops? The firefighters? For you and me?
• What's with underwear? When I was at UM in the early 70's, hardly anyone wore them. Trust me, I've seen my fair share of cracks over the years-- some good (the one I saw on March 7, 2006 was a standout), most bad-- but now a days, they've changed what once was something utilitarian into a fashion statement. I know this because I can see people's underwear almost every place I go. I find myself not knowing whether to look or turn away. Maybe some day if I live long enough, I will be comfortable seeing other people's underwear in public.
• Speaking of underwear, until I started dating a sensuous, worldly Brazilian named Luciana, I didn't know that after all of these years I had been placing "it" inside my underwear in the wrong position. According to her, it is supposed to go "up." I ran this by Esquire magazine's Answer Guy and he said, after calling me a "pussy," that this is America and I can put it any where I want to. Thanks to Luciana, however, I discovered colorful "athletic briefs" and stopped buying those old man white cotton briefs and will never go back. Now, God forbid, if I should ever get into an accident, I can rest assured that at least I'll be looking good on the gurney, well, at least as far as the underwear goes.
• What's with the county trying to dig a $1.2 billion tunnel between the Port of Miami and Watson Island? Recent reports show that the port has lost money while other ports-- including its chief competitor, Ft. Lauderdale's Port Everglades-- made profits. Part of the plan to pay for the tunnel includes charging trucking companies and shippers tolls. Won't this raise the cost of doing business at the port? Won't it drive business away? As MVB has suggested, why haven't they considered bringing the existing, unused rail line on line during the dead of night to relieve port congestion while downtown is asleep? It's gotta be a lot cheaper than digging a billion dollar freaking tunnel.
• When I was growing up in the westside of North Miami, no one got murdered by a gun. Burglaries were unheard of. Then, during the seventies and eighties, people moved away and the color and the language changed from white and English to black, brown, Spanish, Creole and something resembling English. Murders went up along with burglaries. When I went to North Miami High, no one got killed and it stayed that way up until the last 10 years when at least two kids have been killed there. One crawled under a car in the school parking lot to get away from a guy with a gun-- to no avail; the killer got on all fours, looked under the car and fired away. Some even pee in the hallway. What happened?
• Elita Loresca.

UpDate (12/13/08): Christmas comes early with the announcement that the tunnel project succumbs to a well-deserved death when the state and Bouygues Travaux Publics can't agree on terms. Hurray!

Another Shooting, Another Day In Paradise

As the young bodies keep dropping all around us in Miami because someone was "disrespected" or someone wanted someone's rims or someone's girl or last, but not least, someone's money, check out these stats while listening to this catchy little ditty with a message: "Another Shooting" by Lori Rosolowsky.

• In the last 18 months, 31 young people died from gunfire in Miami.
• In a 2004 study by Sperling's BestPlaces, Miami was singled out as having the highest violent crime rate as well as one of the highest property crime rates.
• In 2003, one kid or teen in the US was shot to death every three hours, nearly 8 every day, 54 a week, nearly 3,000 a year. 4 to 5 times that number survived bullet wounds.
• The number of kids killed by guns in 2003 exceeded the number of American soldiers killed in Iraq for 2003 to April 2006.
• More 10-19 year-olds died from gunshots than from any other cause in the US other than motor vehicle accidents.
• Almost 90% of US kids killed by firearms in 2003 were boys.
• Black kids are most likely to be victims of firearm homicide. In fact, the firearm death rate for Black males ages 15-19 is more than 4 times that of White males in the same age group.

Something ain't right in America. Something ain't right in Miami. The boys here at MVB keep thinking about the ones walking around with bullet wounds: 45,000 since those stats. That's a freaking city's worth of angry young people prone to "acting out." Lots of attitude. Lots of anger. Lots of bragging rights. We think about them "begatting" a new generation in a violent world that is the norm to them. Papa be bad. Papa be dead. Look at me wrong and you be dead too. So much anger and hatred. Where does it all come from? And what, if anything, can be done about it?

These are the kinds of questions that keep us up at night. With a loaded Smith & Wesson by the bedside.

Miami Buyers Lining up for $1.3 Million Sports Car

It's called the Bugatti Veyron. Only 300 of the French "super cars" will be built. Out of the 100 orders the company has received, 10 came from Miami. Now for some eye-opening stats:

• Top speed is 256 miles per hour.
• Goes from zero to 100 miles per hour in 2.5 seconds and then decelerates to a stop in 2.3 seconds.
• Guaranteed not to overheat "during summer months in Miami," assures Georges Keller, head of communications for Bugatti.

According to this recent article found in Miami Today, Miami is a "hot bed for elite car owners" and a "good market for the Veyron." Another company spokesman was quick to remind us that the Veyron can also be driven slowly much "like a Bentley or a Lexus."

Athalie Range Remembered

Athalie Range is gone but not forgotten. Having passed at age 91 yesterday, Ms. Range left an enduring legacy of public service. Since we grew up here, I can attest that Ms. Range was the pioneer for civil rights in this community. She was working for change here two years before anyone had heard of Martin Luther King. That 1953 project to rectify conditions at her kid's elementary school in Liberty City set her on a path of social reform that carried itself even as far as just ten days ago where she presided at a cultural arts foundation fundrasier that bears her name. We can also say, that without a doubt, she was the most ethical politician this community has seen in the last fifty-years.

Her firsts include:

• First African-American on Miami's City Commission
• First black--and woman-- to serve in a high-ranking state government post as director of the Department of Community Affairs.

You can thank her for MetroRail. In a close election, she was instrumental in getting her constituents to vote in favor of the controversial referendum that was being criticised for its expense.

When Verticus, who was living in North Miami at the time, looked south and saw huge columns of smoke rising off of 79th street during the 1980 riots, Ms. Range was bravely walking the streets where people were being murdered left-and-right, talking to anyone who would listen in order to quell the riots.

Probably her greatest legacy was the way she approached the world: tirelessly, never giving up despite adversity to right wrongs and to give a voice to the voiceless. Public figures like her are rare and even rarer here.

Thanks, Ms. Range, for staying the course over all those years. If it hadn't been for you, we fear our communtiy would be in much worse shape and its government less than salvageable.

Miami Dade College Number One...

Despite its management.

We've always been proud of Miami Dade College. Verticus Erectus is an alumnus of the North Campus-- as are most of the MVB staff with the possible exception of Sir Manny Mojito who says he's an Oxford graduate. In fact, looking back, Mr. Erectus argues his MDC professors were better there than those at the University of Miami where he finished his last two years. Today, the college ran a full-page color ad in the Miami Herald reminding everyone at considerable public expense that they are, among others, number one in these areas:

• MDC enrolls the most students in the nation (163,000)
• Awards the most Associate Degrees
• Awards the most degrees in Nursing
• Enrolls and graduates more Hispanic students than any other in the nation
• Enrolls and graduates more African-American students than any other in the nation
• Is the most diverse institution in the nation with students representing 171 countries and 84 languages

So why can't they pick up the phone or answer their emails in the International Student's department?

An Eastern European friend who recently graduated from high school told us he was looking into studying music studio production and jazz piano in Canada.We suggested, because he has been here many times-- Verticus booked him at Churchill's where he banged out some original compositions on their old upright-- that he consider MDC because they have some of the best music/film/TV production classes in the U.S. We told him to check them out through the Internet. About six weeks later, he got in touch to let us know that no one had responded to his numerous email queries and asked if we could help him out. When MVB agreed to help, we had no idea about what we were getting ourselves into.

After many emails to the North Campus International Student contact Ms. Tere Martinez went unanswered, we broke down and actually called the International Student department. In the beginning, we left messages because there was no one picking up the phone. This went on for half-a-dozen times over a couple of weeks. At one point, it got so bad that even the answering machine wouldn't kick in to take a message. As always, just when you promise yourself this is it, no more attempts, someone picked up the phone on our last call. Liz, a young woman on the other end, was very polite and apologetic. She explained that the department is inundated with queries and has fallen behind. She was able to answer most of the questions our friend had, but was unsure about the Tuition Assistance Institute which offers special financial incentives to students who live in a few select countries around the world. Our friend happens to be from one of those countries. She didn't have a clue about what we were talking about-- even though there was a link on the opening page of the International Student web site. She suggested MVB check with Financial Aid. We did, they didn't have a clue either and said we should go back to International Student Services.We did and got lucky twice in the same day. Liz again answered the phone and promised to get back to us before 4:30pm. Well, she did, but her department still didn't know what we were talking about. So, MVB clicked the link on the side of the their web page. The program is state funded to waive all or part of a foreign student's tuition. Only 25 are given out in a year for the whole state. Digging deeper, we discovered the Eastern Europe group is ran out of the University of Central Florida in Orlando. MVB sent the director, Jean Kijek, an email. We called them up and left messages. Nothing.

To this day, no one from Miami Dade College north campus has responded to our original emails. Tere Martinez hasn't called. Neither has anyone from the University of Central Florida. This leads MVB to believe that these state schools succeed despite themselves. If Miami Dade College president Eduardo Padron, the highest paid community college president in the U.S., took a cut in his $407,229 annual salary or a cut from his 31.5% salary supplement, maybe they could fund a couple more support staff positions in the north campus International Student department to answer the phones and reply to the emails.

Anyway, our friend will miss the winter semester because of the ineptitude of the MDC north campus. Hopefully he will be able to enroll for the fall semester. By the way, the kid speaks and writes perfect English and has a Cambridge Certificate of English to prove it. Unfortunately, MDC doesn't accept that one. He needs TOEFL certification. To prove he can handle the English requirements, he will have to take a TOEFL test at the college which to us sounds like another example of a badly ran bureaucracy at work.

The Miami Circle: What it could have been

Now that there is a strong possibility that the Miami Circle (which from this point on will be referred to as "the thing"*) might actually be a giant "Smiley Face" (see earlier entry) and the first earliest recording of man having a sense of humor, MVB would like to take this opportunity to show what could have been if county government had handled the original discovery differently. Instead of forking over nearly $27 million dollars of taxpayers money in 1999 to the developer to stop him from developing (with nothing to show for it as of this date-- the site is covered in sand to "preserve it"), a more rational approach would have required the developer to include "the thing" in the project's design. As can be seen in the picture above, "the thing" is enclosed in an air-conditioned atrium. This would allow unsuspecting tourists or people with way too much time on their hands to look down at it from the spiraling floors above and ponder the meaning of it all.


"What the *@#%?" they may well have asked. But alas, no one will ever know.

Our fear, however, is that even our suggested compromise would not be a win-win for both parties because we see, over time, that "the thing" will become nothing more than a giant ash tray and trash can for all those who see it, i.e., because of its pockmarked surface, it would have called eternally to our subconscious to throw something into it-- as the county did in 1999.

Lost Property Taxes
The irony here is that "the thing" lies within the City of Miami, one of the poorest cities in the U.S. If the developer had been allowed to build, it was estimated back then that the twin condo towers would have brought the city $1.1 million per year in property taxes which could have gone toward building public funded affordable housing.

*MVB thinks the circle is atrocious, lacking in the basics of the best archeological discoveries which tease the imagination. Too bad there isn't some sort of scale that would grade discoveries based on how they speak to the human spirit as being worthy or worthless of preservation. If it had been an ancient mosaic floor, MVB would be behind preserving it-- and incorporating it into a tax generating machine for the city of Miami.

Poor ex-Miami mayor Joe Carollo, say what you will about the man, for all of his shortcomings, he was the only one who wanted to preserve the circle and allow the developer to continue developing. His plan was to have a stone mason come in and move it so the buildings could be erected. His city, which was the poorest city in the U.S. at that time, could have used the taxes it would have brought in but he was overruled by the county commission and rival mayor Alex Pinellas. Carollo said at that time of Pinellas, "What he is proposing is the destruction of the City of Miami as an entity."

Well, the city is still standing albeit precariously on spindly-- but pretty-- legs because of condo speculators. But what will happen if the bubble bursts as predicted? Will the world see Miami and the county for what it may truly be, a provincial burb grasping for anything that falls out of a trash heap to justify its existence; a shallow, hollow city of empty high-end condos and possibly the brunt of a giant cosmic joke?

Earliest Known New World Written Language Points to Miami

Following the announcement in Science magazine of the earliest known example of a written language in the New World, MVB resident archeologist Bobby Bermudez took it upon himself to travel to Mexico to offer his services in translating the new find. The Olmec inscription is estimated to be close to 3,000 years old but Mr. Bermudez, fresh off his controversial theory about the Miami Circle, contends that the faintly etched symbols on a stone found beneath a giant Olmec head belong to what may be the first known advertisement.

"If my interpretation is correct," Mr. Bermudez reports from his hospital bed at Baptist Hospital in Kendall, FL., where he is being treated for a collapsed lung and broken bones, "I will go down in history as the man who discovered the first advertisment."

Mr. Bermudez, despite warnings from fellow archeologists not to go digging around the base of the giant head because the soil was unstable, was crushed by the head when it fell over on top of him.

"I needed to bolster my theory and, in order to do that, I felt it was necessary to dig further, if you will," he continued, "to see what I could find at the sight of the original discovery. Sure, it hurts, but it was worth it in the end."

And what was his important discovery? According to Mr. Bermudez, the slab discovered under the giant head was connected to a larger inscription that, when translated, says: "What happens in Miami stays in Miami."

Miami Circle: Giant Smiley Face

Miami archaeologist Bobby Bermudez discovered today that the world famous Miami Circle is an ancient giant "Smiley Face."

Originally uncovered in 1998 when a developer was clearing the land to erect twin condo towers, it has taken Mr. Bermudez eight long years of tedious scholarship to decode the mysterious holes in the ground at the mouth of the Miami River. "Although some experts believe the holes are a septic tank, through an arduous process that involved such disparate fields as computer mapping, Mayan studies, and channeling, I have been able to determine that the Miami Circle is a monumental ceremonial mask to the pre-Columbian Tequesta's god of mirth."

"Not very much is known about the Tequestas except that they were tall, naked, and dead before the Conquistadors ever set foot on Florida," Mr. Bermudez continued. "But it's good to know they had a sense of humor. In fact, this is the earliest known example of humankind possessing a sense of humor. Except for some erotic art found on the walls of Pompei, most artifacts depict us as a violent, blood-letting superstitious lot so, in that regard, this is one of the most important discoveries ever made, if I do say so myself."

Depending on where you live and how desperate you are for a little piece of history, digging up the past can be expensive. At that time, to appease a small but vocal minority of preservationists, "new age" wackos, members of the Mayan Huichol tribe and representatives of the "Taino people" who set up camp at the site for a 24-hour tom-tom-athon, County government wrote a check for $26.7 million dollars to the developer to stop developing. Soon after, to preserve the holes, the excavation was covered up with sand and will remain so until funding can be found to develop an educational exhibit.

Despite Mr. Bermudez's assertions, MVB suspects the Miami Circle really is nothing more than the remains of a septic tank and that the original archaeologists who discovered it came to the same conclusion after-the-fact and chose to cover it up with a couple of dump truck loads of sand to avoid any embarrassment to their careers.

UpDate (11/8/2008): AP reports the discovery of a "dinosaur dance floor" by University of Utah scientists was recently proven by paleontologists to be nothing more than a "collection of potholes caused by erosion in the sandstone." This jump to conclusions by "experts" reminds of us of the travesty that happened here.

What the "Miami Circle" Needs: A Madman in a Bulldozer

In 1998, archaeologists found a 36-foot diameter circle of holes in downtown Miami. 24 big ones plus some "minor ones." The archaeologists figured the holes were between 1,700 and 2,000 years old. It wasn't a discovery on the scale of say, finding King Tut, in fact, it was hardly on anyone's archeological meter at all because basically, no matter how you looked at it, it was nothing more than a CIRCLE OF HOLES IN THE GROUND. It wasn't the tip of a pyramid poking through the weeds holding the remains of some bejeweled, gold laden king. It was a CIRCLE OF HOLES IN THE GROUND. Initially, one expert was sure they were the remanents of a septic tank but he was soon overruled by a majority of experts who agreed that they were the remains of post holes, dug thousands of years ago to support a ceremonial hut of some sort (to some archaeologists, it's always a "ceremonial" something or other). I believe the only thing found of interest in one of the holes was a shark's tooth and a condom (circa 1949). With the exception of a some really old people, archaeologically speaking, Miami can't lay claim to anything much older than a hundred years, so the "Miami Circle" as it soon became known, was something to latch onto with pride.

Like remoras on a shark, civic leaders, quasi-Native Americans, and kids from around the world thanks to unsupervised time on the Internet attached themselves to these crude holes in the ground and made them a cause celebre with reasons ranging from "because they're sacred" to "they're cute." Before long, with the world rising against him, developer Michael Baumann caved in to the pressure and dropped his "Brickell Pointe" condo project in the proverbial hole of good intentions.

"Yeah, yeah," I can hear some proud citizen saying, "you may have the Taj Mahal, but we got a freakin' circle of really old holes in the ground."


Perhaps, in the end, something good did come out of all of this. The twin towers that got deep-sixed were unexceptional in their design for such a landmark space.Hopefully reason will return to the community someday in the near future and a world-class building will be erected on that spot that will lift our spirits with it as it rises skyward from a murky past to an exciting future full of hope. Right now, all we can pray for is that one night, a madman in a bulldozer will run rampage over the "thing" in the ground and grade it all to hell so that we can get on with our lives, to embrace the future and to put the really boring past behind us. For that man, MVB would hope to see him honored with another bronze statue flanking the noble Tequesta on the opposite side of the Brickell Bridge, commemorating the day Miami got its senses back.

Hurricanes, Schmericanes!

I know the "mean season" has arrived and I'm not talking about the weather. Yesterday, I turned on the TV to catch the local six o'clock news and quickly started changing channels. Every station was doing a story on hurricane Chris for crisesakes. Yesterday it was probably a thousand miles away. Today it's just a whimpering blip on the radar.

Is it just me, or do you feel the same way about hurricane coverage? It's way too much information way too soon and for far too long. My God, sometimes they start the coverage when a tropical depression forms off the coast of Africa! The last time I looked, that was on the other side of the freaking Atlantic Ocean!

You have to understand, I grew up here. When the media asks if you are prepared, baby, I've been prepared since Hurricane Donna (1960) with the exception of one additional change: I make sure my remote has fresh batteries so I can find something on TV other than the latest hurricane updates. Back then, before weather satellites and remotes, when weathermen were men and not hot babes in tight-fitting clothes in low-cut necklines (although, I must admit, that is an improvement), we got our info from radar and brave men who flew vintage aircraft into the eyes of hurricanes-- and that was only when it was close enough to read on radar screens. And you know what? We got through it without a lot of hand-holding, 24-hour advice from the media. This was before there were Home Depots in every neighborhood where you could rush out and buy your supplies. There were a few Lindsey Lumber stores around (now history) but most of us just lowered our window shutters, hunkered down, and waited for the storm to pass. As far as I'm concerned, the media is making Florida a state of wussies. That's my opinion. What's yours?