TICKET GIVEAWAY!

THIS CONTEST IS CLOSED

If you've bought tickets to a concert lately through Ticketmaster, you know that a $20 ticket ends up being the price of a Bentley. Shame on you, Ticketmaster. We thought you were our friend. Know who really IS your friend? Well, us, of course, but also the Rhythm Foundation. They're the organization that brings us obscure (at least to Americans) bands/musicians from some country you've probably never been to and makes you fall in love with them and buy every one of their CDs and then have a party just so you can play all those CDs and then your friends are all, "I love this band, who is it?" And you're all, oh, what, you didn't go to their concert here last week?

If a band plays in Urban Outfitters but nobody hears, does it make a sound?

What do you do when it's supposed to rain on a Sunday? Go to a movie, of course. What do you do when it's supposed to rain but turns out to actually be sunny but therefore really, unbearably hot? Go to the movies, of course. I'll jump at any chance to treat my albino skin to a dark cave. And be lazy. So, yeah, hooray movie.

So last Sunday my beaux and I decided to pretend we were 16 and go see Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist. Think Go meets High Fidelity. I'm a sucker for teen movies (even more so if they involve teens dancing), as teen movies always portray the kind of teen experience I never had. I was never conflicted between hanging with the "odd" kids who I actually liked and the popular kids who would take me to college parties. I never got into a prestigious performing arts school and pushed the envelope with my street-honed dance skillz. And I never went on all-night escapades that involved going into the "big city," jumping from cool dingy bar to cool dingy bar and ending up in a hip diner at 5 a.m.

Festivus for the Restivus

Though "the season" is officially here in Miami (determined by a very scientific formula - counting the party invitations in my mailbox), one area of entertainment still (and will probably always) remains more emaciated than Polina on the Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency. (Empty carrot cake box under the bed? I've seen that made-for-tv bulimia movie starring Calista Flockhart - you're not fooling anyone, Polina.) The JDMA, btw, is a great show to watch at the gym. But I digress.

We've got art (Basel), we've got fashion (Funkshion), dance (the MCB) and whatever's on the Arsht sched this season - some classical music, a few operas, a little Broadway, yadda yadda. But when it comes to music - as in bands one stands up in a mid-size concert venue to listen to - Miami is seriously lacking. This isn't a tune (pun not so much intended but maybe a little) I haven't sung before. Over and over and over and over. But it always comes up again when I go out of town to see a band - and to see most of my favorite bands, that's what I have to do - or, in the case of last weekend, more bands in a few days than I get to see all year here.

Scary Contest!

THIS CONTEST IS CLOSED

I've never been a fan of scary things.

The scary movies I'm forced (or tricked) into watching I "watch" with my eyes discreetly cast to the floor. When I sense a something about to jump out, I conveniently notice that my shoe has come untied, or the Icee needs a good stir. I have no desire to feel a dead loved one's "presence" (or any dead person for that matter), mysterious "cold spots" in a room are the cause of badly placed vents and I don't think haunted houses are "fun." It's not so much that seeing a guy with a chainsaw makes me jump. It's the guy with a chainsaw suddenly turning it on behind me. I don't like being startled. I don't jump, scream and then laugh at my silliness. I get anxious and then pissed. I also don't like being touched by strangers (on all levels). I don't like it when the person behind me in the movie line is right on my butt, and so same goes for a zombie. I covet my personal space. Violate it and I get cranky.

That said, I understand that for many people, haunted houses are an enjoyable experience. So for those of you who enjoy a good scare, Miami.com is giving away passes to Nightmare: Ghost Stories, a new haunted house at Wynwood's SoHo Studios. It's an import from NYC, and they're all cutting edge, so it must be pretty good. The first 5 who reply to this blog post with "Scare my pants off, Miami.com!" get 2 VIP passes. The next 10 who do so get regular passes, which just means you don't get to go in the "express line." But really, half the fun is the anticipation.

Or so I've been told.

-- miaeditor

Reunited and it feels so good

This weekend I went to St. Louis for the wedding of one of my good friends from college. Now, I'm not one for organized reunions. I didn't go to my 10-year high school, nor will I go to my 20 or anything after that. It's not that I was particularly anti-social during that period of my life. It's just that sites like Facebook have made it possible for me to keep in touch with everyone I want to keep in touch with from that time. There is no one that I think, "Hmm, I wonder where so-and-so is these days..." Except maybe this one girl we nicknamed Salad Shooter after an "intimate" experience with some vegetables. But that would just be out of curiosity (Hole cover band? Kindergarten teacher?), not genuine interest in her life. Same with the mysterious cowboy boot-wearing James in my Spanish class who told me to use "Paint It Black" for a retarded English assignment for which we had to analyze a song (which is what happens when your teachers grew up in the '60s).

Me So Corny

What happens when you watch bad television? You get bad commercials. I can't remember what show was killing my brain cells when I saw the ad for high fructose corn syrup, but whatever it was, apparently I'm the demographic that's shunning this sweetener and causing all the bigwigs at the hfcs company to freak out. Well, whoever did their market analyses was actually on the ball, as I, after seeing a documentary called King Corn, totally shunned what I now consider the devil's sugar. Apparently a lot of other people made the same decision, forcing hfcs to come up with an actual advertising campaign that paints us non-hfcs-eating folks as complete idiots.

And the Beat Goes On

Miami is a tough, tough town to open a small business. Unless you're either a strip club or cafecito window (what if someone combined the two? Now THAT would be innovation), of course. I've seen a lot of great places opened by some really creative people (A restaurant, Amate tea lounge, any cute boutique on or around Lincoln Road) get stomped quicker than Ohio State playing USC (ooh, burn). I'm not sure why they fail, but if I had to guess, it's because of that classic Miami indifference toward independent businesses. I'm as guilty as anyone for not frequenting these places enough - but it's not because I'd rather go to Starbucks and Target, it's solely because I'm unadventurous and, well, lazy. I think about going to the Upper East Side Garden for one of their fun-sounding events, then I convince myself it would take too much energy to hang with the cool kids, when in reality, the UEG is a really just a cool place to just chill and have a beer.

Reading is Fun-damental

So this morning I decided to do a little work from home instead of my normal routine of reading half an article in the New Yorker or some other publication I always intend to read cover to cover and then don't. So in order to get the bare minimum daily dose of news I need to feel good about myself, I turned on CNN. Before they switched to showing footage of waves crashing over a seawall in Galveston (don't worry, you have 18 more hours before Ike actually hits to catch some of it), I caught 2 minutes of an extremely annoying news anchor interviewing Ed Koch. She asked him something about Sarah Palin and how she had banned some books from her local library. After the break, the news anchor came back on with a correction: Palin hadn't banned books, she had merely "asked" about banning them. Phew! She had only "asked" about giving the Constitution a big f-you. No harm in asking, right? Unless, apparently, you're the librarian, and you say "no."

Opinionated Much?

Two years ago, I got an email from a friend/ex-coworker about a new website launching in Miami and that they were looking for an editor. The name of the website was DailyCandy, a daily e-mail sent out to subscribers highlighting everything from a new restaurant to a woman who will give you a wax in the shape of your bf's initials. Or something. I had never heard of it before, but when I went online to check out other city editions (NYC, LA, Philly, etc.) and started reading the sassy, witty prose, I knew we would be a perfect fit. The DC ladies thought so too, and so DC Miami was born.

Fast forward to present. In the past few months alone, similar city websites/newsletters have launched, including UrbanDaddy (kind of like a DC for dudes); Thrillist (a more gender neutral DC); and Yelp, a website totally run by its users - leaving reviews of everything from bars to dry cleaners. Oh yes, and Miami.com. Not to sound like a doo-shay, but when anyone asks me who our competition is, I say no one. We're not an email, and we're not totally run by our users. I like to describe us as an online city mag/user review hybrid. The staff AND the patients are running this asylum.

No Wonder it's called a Huffy

Remember the plot of Ghostbusters II? Of course you do. There was this hot pink lava goo bubbling under NYC that fed off anger, and the more yelling, the more neck-vein popping, the bigger it got. Eventually, it bubbled into the streets and the Ghostbusters had to come out of retirement to make it go away. This is how I feel about Miami -- at least when I'm in my car. I can feel it -- anger goo is going to flood I95 and cause the traffic jam that ends all traffic jams, and centuries later, an archaeologist will uncover the site of the disaster, where they will find us all Pompeii-style -- immortalized with expressions of rage on our faces and upturned middle fingers.