Catching Cocaine Cowboys references on new tracks from Young Jeezy and Game

via HipHopWired:

Young Jeezy: "Pull up jump out stuntin' like I was Baby, on my Cocaine Cowboys shit like in the 80s"

 

"See No Evil (feat. Kendrick Lamar and Tank)" from Game's new album Jesus Piece:

Game: "Karma catches up to all you head honchos, two dome shots in that head Griselda Blanco"

NBC's Mark Potter honored

Congratulations to our friend Mark Potter, who received a regional Silver Circle Award at the 2012 Suncoast Emmy Awards on Saturday night:
"During his 37 year journalism career, Mark has reported from all over the United States, as well as South America, Central America and the Caribbean, including Haiti and Cuba, the South Pacific, the Philippines and Israel.  Much of his career was spent with investigative units at both the national and regional levels, and he has reported on topics including politics, narcotics and immigrant smuggling, environmental issues, natural disasters, international conflicts and numerous high profile court cases."
We interviewed Mark for Square Grouper because of his exceptional exposes on the Ethopian Zion Coptic Church and Everglades City. He'll also appear in our upcoming documentary Cocaine Cowboys: Remix, coming in 2013.

Art Basel is upon us

As Miami gears up for the tenth edition of Art Basel, the annual invasion of globe-trotting art and party lovers, major publications are frothing over the Magic City:

How Culture Created Miami Nice (Financial Times):

Ten years after its first Art Basel fair, the fortunes of the Florida city have been transformed. These days, to imagine Miami without art is to miss one of the city’s major reasons for being. The arrival of Art Basel Miami Beach in 2002 galvanised Miami’s citizens, and the wider art world, as never before.

Well, perhaps galvanised those in Miami who read the Financial Times. It probably didn't galvanise those in chronically poverty-striken Miami, where one in four children live below the poverty line.

Of course leave it to Miami Beach's perpetually befuddled mayor Matti Herrera Bower to be apallingly clueless about the impact of Miami Vice on the city's reniassance:

“It was an interesting enough series,” Miami Beach mayor Matti Herrera Bower recalls today, “but it wasn’t a good image at all. It was all shooting and blood.”

The Wall Street Journal proclaims "there's a style renaissance afoot in the city of sun, fun and vice," while the New York TImes astutely observes "the bacchanal known as Art Basel Miami Beach enters its second decade — bigger, richer, longer and, if it’s possible, snobbier than ever before."

Brett Sokol, one of Miami's keenest observers, penned a full-throated defense of the city in the New York Times, challenging Tom Wolfe's clownish portrait of Miami in his latest novel Back to Blood:

For Mr. Wolfe, the city remains defined by bitter ethnic divisions and steered by la lucha: the Cuban-American community’s — make that el exilio’s — frothing-at-the-mouth fixation on the Castro regime across the Florida Straits...Yet the latest data hardly depicts a monolithic Cuban-exile community marching in ideological lock step.

Thankfully Sokol dispels the notion still propagated by clueless travel writers that today's South Beach nightlife scene bears any resemblance to its no-holds-barred 1990s heyday:

The changes in Miami’s celebrated night life are no less dramatic. The debauched South Beach whirl that once drew so much attention now exists only on “reality” TV. Both the leggy models and the even leggier drag queens have packed up their high heels and moved on; sidewalk bottlenecks these days are more apt to be caused by oversize strollers than by fashion shoots.

Sokol concludes with a sharp analysis of what the results of the 2012 election in Florida mean:

In the end, [voters] rejected every one of the most eyebrow-raising proposals — from property tax breaks for snowbirds, to restrictions on abortion, to, yes, further tightening of the embargo on Cuba. That kind of patient thoughtfulness may not make for as exciting a headline as anti-Castro demonstrators, or celebrities behaving badly. But for those of us who actually live in Miami — who don’t merely parachute in to deliver glib verdicts — it’s reason to be hopeful about the future. 

@AlfredSpellman

Broke is now the highest rated film in ESPN's 30 for 30 series

TV By The Numbers reports that Broke was seen by 2.53 million viewers and was the second-highest watched cable program of the night after Sons of Anarchy.

Broke earned a 1.92 HH rating, making it the highest rated film in ESPN's 30 for 30 series to date, besting Pony Excess and The U.

According to BlueFin Labs, it was also the most social show of the night:

Thanks to all of you who tuned in and tweeted with us!

Broke premieres on ESPN tonight at 8pm ET

ESPN's critically acclaimed 30 for 30 series kicks off its second season with the premiere of our new documentary Broke, tonight at 8pm ET.

According to a 2009 Sports Illustrated article, 60 percent of NBA players are broke within five years of retirement. For 78 percent of NFL players, it takes only three years. Sucked into bad investments, stalked by freeloaders, saddled with medical problems, and naturally prone to showing off, many pro athletes get shocked by harsh economic realities after years of living the high life. Drawing surprisingly vulnerable confessions from retired stars like Keith McCants, Bernie Kosar and Andre Rison, as well as Marvin Miller, the former executive director of the MLB Players Association, this fascinating documentary digs into the psychology of men whose competitive nature can carry them to victory on the field and ruin off it.

Director Billy Corben (The U, Cocaine Cowboys, Limelight) paints a complex picture of the many forces that drain athletes' bank accounts, placing some of the blame on the culture at large while still holding these giants accountable for their own hubris. A story of the dark side of success, "Broke," is an allegory for the financial woes haunting economies and individuals all over the world.

Wall Street Journal:

Kosar is featured in the film along with other names that will be familiar to Bankruptcy Beat readers, like Curt Schilling. The former Boston Red Sox pitcher, whose videogame company filed for bankruptcy protection this summer, recalled cashing his first paycheck and spreading the $20 bills around him on a hotel bed as he watched TV and ordered room service. Schilling, who earned more than $100 million throughout his career, thought he’d “never” be able to spend it all. Now, he said he expects to lose between $40 million and $50 million as a result of his company’s bankruptcy.

“I never believed that you could beat me,” Schilling says in the film. “I lost.”

Miami Herald:

In Broke, Corben once again displays his astounding narrative skills, weaving a complex tapestry of facts, numbers and anecdotes from dozens of interviews and a mountain of archival footage. Not to be found among the latter: anything from the see-no-evil NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball, who can’t imagine why anybody thinks there’s a problem here.

Black Enterprise:

It must have been tough to get people to talk about this topic.

I think first off it’s a matter of access. We wanted to get as many personal stories as we could get. In our documentaries — Cocaine Cowboys, The U — we always try for the first person account. For us, it was a matter of figuring out who’s going to talk to us. There’s hardly a more sensitive subject to try and get people to talk about. Maybe religion or politics. But money is certainly right up there. It was really a matter of trying to find people who would be willing to open up and luckily we got a lot of great stories. I hope that ultimately the documentary starts a discussion about this issue. I think most people just say, ‘You’ve got to be dumb to blow through $100 million,’ when the fact is it’s much easier than you think to end up in financial straits. I hope we get that across in the documentary.

Cooler Cinema:

Shocking, sobering and sometimes just sad, Broke is yet another terrific installment in the "30 for 30" franchise, and a promising start for this official second run. It may also be the first documentary in the series with the potential to bring about positive change in sports. 

Witness to Griselda Blanco's murder: "It was vengeance from the past”

Miami Herald's Frances Robles reports on the scene outside the Medellin butcher shop where Blanco was shot:

As [Griselda Blanco] lay dying on the ground, her pregnant daughter-in-law, who had been waiting in the car, lay a Bible on her chest.

No one who witnessed the attack knew until later that the victim was one of the most violent and powerful drug traffickers in Miami’s history. According to a witness interviewed by The Miami Herald, the killer was a man in his 40s or 50s who was calm and composed throughout the attack.

“He was a professional,” the witness said. “It was vengeance from the past.”

Griselda Blanco shot to death by assassins on motorcycles in Medellin on Monday


Butcher shop in Medellin where Griselda Blanco was killed. Photo by Santiago Olivares

El Colombiano broke the news early Monday evening: Griselda Blanco had been shot and killed in broad daylight by assassins on motorcycles as she left a butcher's shop in Medellin on Monday afternoon.

Several other South American media outlets reported the story before the BBC confirmed it.

Miami New Times's Francisco Alvarado spoke to longtime Blanco family friend Cristian Rios:

[Rios] confirmed reports by Colombian news outlets that Blanco died from her wounds after she was transported to a nearby hospital. "It's hard to comprehend right now," he says. "I'm hoping the reprisals end here."

The Miami Herald's David O'Valle had the first detailed story of Blanco's death and history in Miami:

“It’s surprising to all of us that she had not been killed sooner because she made a lot of enemies,” former Miami homicide detective Nelson Andreu, who investigated her, said late Monday. “When you kill so many and hurt so many people like she did, it’s only a matter of time before they find you and try to even the score.”

Mickey Munday and others took to Twitter: