MUSIC MASKS MOODY MIAMI MONDAYS

ENTERTAINMENT – REVIEWS

NOTHING TO DO IN MIAMI ON MONDAY NIGHTS?
Prayers Born from Adult Boredom Have Been Answered
by L. Grant Pooka
The Palmetto Patriot

For many years I have suffered the Monday blues in Miami… the beginning of the work week is not only bright and full of assholes, but a sharp contrast to the weekend nightlife that has raked billions of pookied-out dollars into the local economy for over a decade. It’s like chocolate withdrawal, a taxing rehabilitation for the Miami-born Night Owl. However, I am now able to declare, using a quote from Red Dwarf: “‘Tis p’shaw and nonsense!”

For starters, grab a buddy and head on down to Laundry Bar [701 Lincoln Lane North, South Beach] for a quick drink and larf… Ask bartender Ernie to blow fire from his mouth with some 151. Yes, it’s primarily a lesbian venue, so there’s plenty of appeal for you wannabe-lesbian straight dudes out there. But it’s no cover and 2-4-1 until 9pm, after which it gets kind of un-interesting anyway, so how can you go wrong?

Then once your spin cycle is finished, cross over to the mainland and hit the Transit Lounge [729 SW 1st Ave @ Calle Ocho, Brickell District] for JAM Night. There’s no cover, the drinks are cheap, and as the night suggests, it’s a jam! Locals armed with loaded instruments get up and grind with regulars and irregulars from the local latin jazz & funk scene, Spam All-Stars, Suénalo, Smurphio, Lanzallamas Monofónicas… the deep resulting rhythms are enough to awaken my art directors’s self-dubbed volcanopussy. See big daddy Chad prove himself the best trombonist this side of the Mississippi and a smokin’ hot mac daddy to boot!

If the fire’s ready to cool off, then may I suggest the most pleasant surprise of all? Miami Jazz Jam at, of all places, Churchill’s Hideaway [5501 NE 2nd Ave, Little Haiti], lays down a smooth game in the unlikeliest of places. We went for a quick swoop thru Sweat Records, but instead of the usual, cheap and desperate punk-meets-G-Unit fare that has infested Churchill’s for a decade, we were enticed inside by the refreshing vocals of Renée Fiallos and her jazz ensemble. Fiallo’s easy-breezy songbird voice soars thru the air like the ghost of Ella, Billie or Nina, with as much appeal. The band, which will release a new CD this September, is noticeably more eclectic, utopian and talented than anything we’d seen in the Miami underground, and is not to be missed. That’s an order.

So, little Miami kiddies, your prayers for something to do Monday nights have been answered in the most surprising of ways. Where once was silence now is jazz. The axis runs hot on the South end, cool on the North end, and wonderful at both. Dust off your fannies, summon up your cognac-lust, and enjoy.

JAM night at Transit Lounge starts at 10pm.

Miami Jazz Jam at Churchill’s Hideaway starts at 9:30.

Renee Fiallos & Ensemble play at 1:00am.

FORBES: Miami Tops America’s Shitlist

[Ed. Note: We at the Palmetto Patriot apologize for re-posting this incredibly mundane swill of real estate gargle, but we again find it interesting that someone has fudged a set of numbers that construes Miami, once again, as America's Top Sh**hole. Thanks, America!]

TITLE: RISKIEST U.S. HOUSING MARKETS

AUTHOR: Matt Woolsey (FORBES.com)

SOURCE: http://www.forbes.com/2007/07/17/risk-housing-homes-forbeslife-cx_mw_0717realestate.html

BODY:

Those looking to spin the real estate roulette wheel might want to steer clear of Miami. It ranks first on our list of the nation’s riskiest real estate markets. There, a high share of adjustable-rate mortgages, high vacancy rates and slumping prices still too elevated for the local populous means should long-term bond yields climb, interest rates jump or the housing crisis linger much longer, things could go from bad to worse. Affairs are not much better farther north–or west.

Following in Miami’s wake are Orlando, Sacramento and San Francisco. Our ranking of the country’s riskiest markets measures which of the 40 largest metros are most vulnerable to future shocks. We’ve done this by assessing which have the most strained lending conditions, and which markets are the most overvalued and likely to face downward price pressures. Many of the cities on our list–like San Francisco and San Diego–are traditional high fliers where speculators can still make a lot of money if they pick the right neighborhood or hit the price trough. Of course, they might also take a serious bath.

Others, like Chicago or Phoenix, are generally stable markets that are currently under significant strains. Finally, some, like Cincinnati or Kansas City, are precariously teetering and are not well equipped to handle further downturn.

Crunching The Numbers

A good place to start in assessing risk is the state of the local mortgage market. Take adjustable-rate mortgages, or ARMs, in which borrowers, for a limited time, usually five or seven years, make interest-only or reduced-rate payments. The most obvious danger in this is that at the end of the five- or seven-year term, monthly payments increase to a rate the borrower is unable to sustain. Given Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke’s continuing worries about inflation, economists say there’s a good chance rates could go up in the next couple of years, meaning that the increased costs of lending will be passed along to ARM borrowers, and that can mean higher rates of defaults. What’s more, high ARM share generally means a market is unaffordable to its residents.

The metros with the highest shares of ARMs, according to the National Association of Realtors, are in San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles, respectively. These three cities are also the most overpriced, according to our price-to-earnings measure. And these areas are three of the four least affordable to the local population, according to the National Association of Home Builders and Wells Fargo’s affordability index. If rates go up or lending tightens, fewer will be able to buy in, bringing the markets to a screeching halt. Another arbiter of risk? Cities with a high proportion of mortgages with loan-to-value ratios in excess of 90%. Loan-to-value (LTV) measures the size of the mortgage to a home’s overall value. In a standard home buy, the down payment is 10% of the overall value, meaning the LTV is 90%. When the loan-to-value ratio is above 90%, it means buyers have little equity in their homes. And homeowners with low equity are far more likely to default or walk away from a mortgage.

If the market teeters and lenders take a hit from defaults, it can depress prices overall, as is currently being seen with the subprime lending fallout. For that reason, Kansas City is particularly vulnerable. It has a 39% share of mortgages with LTV ratios above 90%. The median rate for cities on our list was 11%, according to the National Association of Realtors. We next mixed in a price-to-earnings ratio for each market. (Like the P/E of a stock, this value attempts to measure the price a homeowner would pay for one dollar of return.) Using data from the National Association of Realtors, the U.S. Census Bureau and the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, we took each market’s median home price and divided it by annual rents minus taxes and insurance for those properties.

The price-to-earnings ratio highlights two significant risks. It magnifies risk factors in overly expensive markets in which there is more money at stake. For example, a 5% drop in median home prices in San Francisco is possible; but the nominal equivalent, a 24% price drop in Dallas, is not something the market is likely to bear. Second, overvalued bubble markets are more likely to face downward price pressures in a slumping market as overvalued markets are, by definition, most likely to experience a correction. A final factor was vacancy rates. It’s not a complicated or glamorous measurement, but it’s difficult to find a better indicator of supply and demand. Orlando’s staggering 5.2% vacancy rate represents a significant risk factor for the city. Strong local economic indicators like job growth and immigration significantly mitigate that risk, but it is in a vulnerable position should there be an economic slowdown or a disruptive hurricane season.

Two larger cities that performed very well by this measure were Los Angeles and New York, which ranked fourth and eighth for lowest vacancy rate. While both cities had high ARM shares and high P/Es, their low vacancy rates bode well for those markets.

SOUTH BEACH ANNIE CRASHES ROSWELL ANNIVERSARY

CULTURE – NATIONAL

PROBING ROSWELL: 60 YEARS STRONG
Special Report by South Beach Annie
The Palmetto Patriot

ROSWELL (NM) – Modern Americans have hyped the Roswell UFO crash into the most important mythological event of the 20th century. We send South Beach Annie, our expert on the Strange-And-Unusual and no stranger to alien probulation, to cover the 60th anniversary of this event to question and assess the Roswell Crash Mythology!

Following up on her lead about a secret, secondary crash site outside Roswell about which the public was not informed. South Beach Annie to investigates locally to confirm that the downed vehicle and its occupants crashed on a ranch near Corona. These remnants were allegedly transported to a hangar in Roswell for preliminary analysis by the military.

South Beach Annie receives a cool reception from the local fauna, unable to secure an interview about the alleged crash, and discovers two local subtexts. One, that the government instilled too much fear of retribution upon the good folks of Roswell to keep their mouths shut; and two, that the locals find the tourist attraction, which drives much of Roswell’s economy, laughable and absurd as tourists routinely defame themselves with camp, kitsch and mediocrity.

Today, the Roswell UFO Crash of 1947 is perhaps the foremost legend in modern American mythology. We at the Palmetto Patriot believe that a well-executed military and govermental cover-up is certainly plausible. There remains suggestive evidence, both for and against, that either an extraterrestrial vehicle and one living alien were recovered, or that it was a US experiment into flying saucer technology reverse-engineered from alleged Nazi technology. We believe that all of these conclusions are potentially valid.