Miami eNews 25 Feb 2015

Page 1

Feb. 25, 2015

http://miami.armymwr.com

southcom.miami.sc-cc.mbx.usag-mwr@mail.mil

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2015 BUGLE BOY

No endorsement implied

LIKE MWR on FACEBOOK

TICKETS AT LEISURE TRAVEL SERVICES FOR TICKETS – CALL 305.437.1595 Leisure Travel Services

RICARDO ARJONA 2/27 HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS 3/1 ELTON JOHN 3/6 ARIANA GRANDE 3/28 WICKED 3/29 MIAMI DADE COUNTY FAIR IGGY AZALEA 5/16 MIAMI DOLPHINS, MIAMI HURRICANES, FLORIDA PANTHERS, MIAMI HEAT, MIAMI MARLINS K1 SPEED TICKETS BLUE MAN GROUP at Universal Studios DISNEY WORLD MILITARY SPECIALS

MASSAGE THERAPY - The Fitness Center offers massage therapy services. To schedule your appointment with Francine, please contact the fitness center front desk, 305.437.0123. Massages offered: Prenatal, Reflexology, Back, Neck and Shoulders, Swedish, Deep Tissue, Hot Stone, Shiatsu, Chair. Go here for details and watch the portal or Facebook for massage specials! One hour massages on Saturdays, by appointment, $50. Call 305.437.0123

AWOL CAFE IS OPEN FOR BREAKFAST AND LUNCH 0700 TO 1600 IN THE FOOD COURT. The menu is posted on the portal and Facebook


Sports & Fitness Fitness Center Class Schedule http://miami.armymwr.com/us/miami/programs/fitness-center/ Monday 0600-0700 Functional Fitness with Frank – Free 1130-1230 Indoor cycling with Monica 1130-1230 Functional Fitness with Frank – Free 1215-1315 Yoga 1230-1330 Functional Fitness with Frank – Free 1130-1300 Self- Defense Fundamentals with Jason - Free 1645-1745 Functional Fitness with Frank - Free Tuesday 0600-0700 Functional Fitness with Frank – Free 0600-0700 Indoor Cycling with Lisa 1130-1230 Functional Fitness with Frank – Free 1130-1230 Indoor Cycling with Lucy 1230-1330 Functional Fitness with Frank - Free 1700-1745 Functional Fitness with Frank - Free

Wednesday 0600-0700 Functional Fitness with Frank – Free 1130-1230 Indoor cycling with Monica 1130-1230 Functional Fitness with Frank – Free 1230-1330 Functional Fitness with Frank – Free 1130-1300 Self- Defense Fundamentals with Jason - Free 1645-1745 Functional Fitness with Frank - Free Thursday 0600-0700 Functional Fitness with Frank – Free 0600-0700 Indoor Cycling - Lisa 1130-1230 Functional Fitness with Frank – Free 1130-1230 Indoor Cycling with Lucy 1230-1330 Functional Fitness with Frank – Free 1130-1300 Self-Defense Fundamentals with Jason - Free

Friday 1130-1230 Indoor Cycling with Monica 1130-1300 Self-Defense Fundamentals with Jason - Free 1215-1315 Yoga

All SOUTHCOM/USAG-MIAMI employees may use the Miami Dade Public Safety Training Institute Aquatic Center 9601 NW 58th Street, Miami, FL 33178. M-F, 0600-1800. Call for details: 305.715.5000. No guests allowed. Hours of Operation

Schedule is Subject to Change

Monday - Thursday: 0500 – 2100, Friday: 0500 - 2000

$3 per Class or $25 for 10 Classes

Saturday and Sunday: 1000 – 1700, Closed on holidays

Pay with cash, check or credit card

Open to Active Duty, Reserve, Retired Military & their Dependents

Please arrive on time for class

305.437.0123/0124

First Come – First Served

USSOUTHCOM/USAG-MIAMI - RELATED FACEBOOK PAGES U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) - https://www.facebook.com/southcom?fref=ts USAG - MIAMI Family Support Center - https://www.facebook.com/USAGMiamiFamilySupportCenter USAG-MIAMI FMWR - https://www.facebook.com/miamifmwr SOUTHERN COMMAND SPOUSES - https://www.facebook.com/groups/131929440155922/?fref=ts USSOUTHCOM PARENT SUPPORT GROUP - https://www.facebook.com/groups/121356728011135/ MILITARY SPOUSE RECIPE SWAP - https://www.facebook.com/groups/102922893243498/ Southern Command On-line Yard Sales - https://www.facebook.com/groups/567364979982480/ Miami-Dade Zip Code Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/MiamiDadeZCG/?fref=ts Homestead Zip Code Group - www.facebook.com/groups/HomesteadMilitaryWives SOCSOUTH SPOUSES GROUP - www.facebook.com/groups/socsouthredfam Conference Center of the Americas (CCA) - https://www.facebook.com/USSOUTHCOMCCA Army Substance Abuse Program USAG-Miami - https://www.facebook.com/ArmySubstanceAbuseProgramMiami J9's Public Private Cooperation division - https://www.facebook.com/southcomppc US SOUTHCOM Health Clinic: https://www.facebook.com/ArmyHealthClinicSouthcom


Army Community Service http://miami.armymwr.com Military Saves Week, February 22 – March 1, POC: richard.c.zimmelman.civ@mail.mil When Love Marriage and Money Come Together, February 25, 1-2pm, POC: richard.c.zimmelman.civ@mail.mil Interview Techniques Workshop, February 26, 9am-12pm, POC; joe.pagan1.civ@mail.mil Estate Planning, February 26, 1-2pm, POC: richard.c.zimmelman.civ@mail.mil Divorce and Credit, February 27, 1-2pm, POC: richard.c.zimmelman.civ@mail.mil Transition Assistance Program, March 9-13, 8am-4pm, POC: joe.pagan1.civ@mail.mil Financial Planning for a Home of Your Own, March 19, 1-2pm, POC: richard.c.zimmelman.civ@mail.mil Foreclosure Alternatives and Prevention, March 19, 2:30-3:30pm, POC: richard.c.zimmelman.civ@mail.mil Newcomer Orientation, March 24, 8am-12pm, March 25, 9-3:30om, POC: victoria.t.dubois.civ@mail.mil Miami Tour, March 27, 9am-4pm, POC: victoria.t.dubois.civ@mail.mil

Volunteer VOLUNTEER REGISTRATION - Volunteer Management Information System (VMIS) 1. Using Internet Explorer, go to www.myarmyonesource.com. If you are not already registered on this site, click on Register at the top right. Click on the Join Now button in the middle of that page on the right. Complete the registration form and select USAG-Miami in the Military Community Affiliation drop-box under HQ IMCOM. 2. Once registered, you can log in. Click on the Volunteer Tools tab located in the upper right hand corner of the webpage. 3. Click on Volunteer Profile. Complete all requested information in the volunteer profile. Be sure to enter the last four digits only of your social security number and save the page. This will ensure you are a registered volunteer. 4. You can use the Volunteer Opportunities tab to locate volunteer opportunities on the installation. If you want to volunteer off the installation, click on the Army Community Service link provides a generic volunteer position description – Special Projects Volunteer – for all off-post volunteer opportunities. 5. Once you locate a volunteer opportunity, click on the position of interest. This will supply you with a detailed outline of the position including the organization contact person. If you want to apply for the position, click on the Apply button on the top right of the position description. 6. Questions or concerns, contact Mary Ortiz, Volunteer Coordinator at 305.437.2665 or 305.437.2667 mary.e.ortiz.civ@mail.mil.

CHAPMAN PARTNERSHIP - Make a real difference in the lives of people who have fallen on hard times. Volunteers are needed for: Meal Services Program, Breakfast (5:30-7:30am,) Lunch (11am-1pm,) Dinner (5-7pm.) After School Programming in our Family Resource Center (M-F 2-5:30pm and 6:30-7:30pm; Saturday 9-11:30am.) Warehouse and Maintenance Operations (M-F, 8am-5pm.) Holiday Assistance, Special Events. All volunteers must complete the volunteer registration paperwork along with a color picture ID. Chapman Partnership has two locations: one in Downtown Miami and one in Homestead. POC: Grace Ugalde-Wolpert, Community Outreach Manager, Chapman Partnership. 1550 North Miami Avenue, Miami, 33136, 305.329.3081, gugalde@chapmanpartnership.org. For more information, visit www.chapmanpartnership.org.

KRISTI HOUSE Volunteers needed at the Kristi House clinic: You must be over age 18 and a high school graduate for this program. Monday-Friday, 8:30am-5:30pm: Waiting Room Ambassadors (you can color with the children, read books, make bracelets etc.) Peak hours are afterschool 2-5:30pm. The clinic needs people to play with the children while they are waiting for therapy and/or when their parent is being interviewed by a State Attorney. The need is during the day and on weekdays Other volunteer activities include: public speaking, fundraising, special events and in-kind donation drives. Thank you for your support of these sexually abused children and their families. POC: Kristi House Volunteer Coordinator Abegail De La Fuente at o. 305.547.6823 c. 786.203.6758 f. 305.250.9161. AFuente@kristihouse.org.

THE ARTS - http://www.artsbizmiami.org/CampaignProcess.aspx?A=View&Data=AHWWLp%2fPUVM30eGwruBkKg%3d%3d MILITARY HOSPITALITY LOUNGE in Miami International Airport (MIA.) Applicants select shifts but must work at least twice per month. Most volunteers work once a week. Shifts are from 9am-1pm, 1-5pm, and 5-9pm. Volunteers will receive passes for employee parking at MIA. Must have some computer knowledge and work well with traveling military and their families with IDs. Sign up online at www.militaryloungemiami.com/?page_id=8 or call 305.587.0046.

DIVERS, VOLUNTEER with Veterans Ocean Adventures and share the undersea world with the disabled community and disabled veterans. Once certified as a Buddy Diver by the Handicapped SCUBA Association, join us as we give back to the community supporting adaptive diving. Volunteers receive free air and free passage on scheduled boat dives. For more information, email info@veteransoceanadventures.org.

CHARLEE OF DADE COUNTY, INC. provides for the needs of abused, abandoned, neglected, and at-risk children in Miami-Dade County. To volunteer, call 305.779.9706.

IN BROWARD: http://www.handsonbroward.org/ IN MIAMI-DADE: http://www.handsonbroward.org/HOC__Special_Event_Details_Page?id=a0MA000000GeuSgMAJ


Discounts MIAMI-DADE DEFENSE ALLIANCE COMMUNITY RESOURCE GUIDE AND DISCOUNT DIRECTORY - http://miami.beaconcouncil.com/mdda/mdda_resource_guide.html MILITARY DISCOUNTS - http://www.bradsdeals.com/blog/military-discounts MIAMI OPEN CITY TOUR - free hop on - hop off transportation to active duty and veterans as well as $19 (50% discount) to spouse and children (I.D. required). Journey begins at Bayside from 9am with the last departure at 4:30pm. Buses are equipped with: Retractable roof (for all weather), Wi-Fi, 7 language audio presentation, Air conditioning on lower deck, Handicap essentials. www.miamiopencitytour.com/en/

DIVING MUSEUM All active duty military are free. Museum dedicated to collecting, preserving, displaying and interpreting artifacts, antiques, books, documents, photographs and oral history relative to the History of Diving and celebrates the special role that South Florida and the Florida Keys played in this untold story. Mile Marker 83 on US-1 in Islamorada on the Bay Side. www.divingmuseum.org/

PEREZ ART MUSEUM MIAMI 1103 Biscayne Blvd., Miami, FL 33132, Active U.S. Military free with ID, http://www.pamm.org/ BIGSTAR MOVIES offers active and veteran service men and women a discounted rate - a one year membership, all access pass, for five dollars. $5 membership ($34.99 regular rate) for an entire year provides access to worldwide cinema. No matter where you are deployed, you can have access as long as you have an internet connection. BIGSTAR Movies- go to the secure link HTTPS://www.bigstar.tv/?promo=usaf and fill in the information.

MILLER'S DORAL ALE HOUSE - Service members in uniform receive 25% discount on meals, 3271 NW 87 Ave, Doral, FL 33172. www.millersalehouse.com/location/doralale-house.

FAIRCHILD TROPICAL BOTANIC GARDEN offers active duty military personnel with ID free admission. Admission for spouses is $20 and children $10 (with ID). www.fairchildgarden.org/

RUNNER’S CO, 10365 NW 41 Street, Doral, FL 33178 305.599.9972, www.runnersco.com, offers all USSOUTHCOM employees a 10% discount with ID. Running shoes, apparel, accessories, nutrition, gait analysis, 2D foot scan.

MIAMI SEAQUARIUM offers free entry for all service members with ID. 4400 Rickenbacker Causeway, Miami, FL 33149. BUBBA GUMP SHRIMP COMPANY offers a 10% discount with military ID for up to 8 people. www.bubbagump.com/locations/miami/ MCDONALD REALTY - Home Purchases, Sales, Rentals and Property Management for Miami Dade and Broward Counties. 15% off standard commission rates for homes sales and 15% commission rebate for all purchases for all Military Personnel, Government Civilians and their families. Veteran-owned business, Certified Florida Military Specialist. Colonel David R. McDonald, Jr., USA retired, Certified Luxury Home Marketing Specialist (CLHMS), Florida Military Specialist (FMS) Broker/Owner, McDonald Realty, 954.443.6705 (office) 954.632.9105 (Cell)

MIAMI SCIENCE MUSEUM - free admission for all active duty military with valid ID. www.miamisci.org/ PARK ‘N FLY - Military Discount - 30% off posted rates for all Military. Show your Military ID Card and Save. The rates for Military in Miami is $7 outside and $9 inside both valet parking included. View Quick Presentation - 15 seconds - https://www.dropbox.com/s/mho5g3xwey0iuin/Miami%20ParkNFly%20Preso.pdf. http://www.pnf.com/

AIRPORT FAST PARK - If you are a federal employee, military or civilian, send an email to southcom.miami.sc.mbx-usag-mwr@mailmil for discount information. This discount is only for federal employees.

YOUNG AT ART MUSEUM - All men and women currently are serving in the military, veterans and their families will be offered an $11 per person admission price to the museum. The discounted entry fee of $11 will be honored at the Young At Art admissions desk. Please present a military ID to receive the discount. 751 SW 121 Ave. Davie. Hours: Monday through Thursday, 10am to 5pm; Friday and Saturday, 10am to 6pm and Sunday 11am to 6pm. Admission - $14 per person; $12 for Broward County residents, seniors and children over age 1 and $11 for military members and their immediate families. 954.424.0085 or www.YoungAtArtMuseum.org.

SAFARI EDVENTURE - Hands-on nature and wildlife presentations. 23700 SW 142 Ave, Miami, Fl. 33170, (About 3 miles south of Cutler Ridge – or – 7 miles north of Homestead.) Active U.S. military families, (Active personnel, spouse, & their children entering with them): $2 off each. http://safariedventure.com/

MILITARY BURGERS “A Hero’s Burger” offers a 10% discount to all service members and law enforcement. 10834 SW 104 St, Miami, FL 33176 , www.facebook.com/militaryburger


In the Community The cadets and cadre of the following Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) high schools are seeking volunteer judges for their annual color guard and drill team meet competitions. The reporting time is 0645 at the respective school's JROTC office. Drill meets normally end by 1430. 21 Feb 15, Northwestern SHS Drill Meet; 14 Mar 15, Miami-Dade State Qualifier at North Miami Beach SHS. More than 500 cadets from around 20 Miami-Dade and Broward Counties' JROTC schools compete in these drill meets. Uniform is the ACU/BDU equivalent IAW each service regulation. Parking is available within school grounds. Volunteers are provided lunch at no cost. You may bring your family. Please volunteer via email to Mercedes Miranda at maria.m.miranda8.civ@mail.mil with your full rank and name (as you would like it printed on your certificate of appreciation), cell phone number, and meet(s) for which you're volunteering. Volunteers will receive more instructions during the week before each drill meet and judge orientation at the school the morning of the event. NAS KEY WEST MWR - To be placed on the e-mail distribution list: cathy.robinson1@navy.mil – please provide your name & command. LIKE their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/NAS-Key-West-MWR/127937197261693. Web page: www.cnic.navy.mil/regions/cnrse/installations/nas_key_west/ffr/things-to-do.html MILITARY HOSPITALITY LOUNGE at Miami International Airport for traveling military personnel and their families. Appropriate military identification and airline tickets or boarding passes are required. Concourse E (in the Central Terminal,) level 2 (Departures and Gates.) Enter hallway to the right of and outside the Security Check-in point. Look for signage directing you to restrooms and the Military Hospitality Lounge. For additional guidance on access to the lounge please check with the nearest Airport Information Counter.

BOOKS & BOOKS EVENTS: Books and Books, 265 Aragon Ave, Coral Gables, Florida 33134. For more details on these and many other author events www.booksandbooks.com/event/selector. Sign up for emails from Books & Books, www.booksandbooks.com/. Many of their events are live streamed. Check the website for further information.

THE BIG READ KEYNOTE AUTHOR DAVID MURA ON JAPANESE AMERICAN INTERNMENT DURING WWII - Feb 25 2015 6:30 pm. The gifted writer, memoirist, poet and performance artist brings a unique perspective to our multi-racial and multi-cultural society. Big Read Keynote: DAVID MURA discussing Japanese American Internment During WWII featuring his two books, Turning Japanese: Memoirs of a Sansei and Where the Body Meets Memory: An Odyssey of Race, Sexuality and Identity. About Turning Japanese: Award-winning poet David Mura's critically acclaimed memoir Turning Japanese chronicles how a year in Japan transformed his sense of self and pulled into sharp focus his complicated inheritance. Mura is a sansei, a thirdgeneration Japanese-American who grew up on baseball and hot dogs in a Chicago suburb, where he heard more Yiddish than Japanese. Turning Japanese chronicles his quest for identity with honesty, intelligence, and poetic vision and it stands as a classic meditation on difference and assimilation and is a valuable window onto a country that has long fascinated our own. Turning Japanese was a New York Times Notable Book and winner of an Oakland PEN Josephine Miles Book Award. This edition includes a new afterword by the author. About Where the Body Meets Memory: In Turning Japanese, poet David Mura chronicled a year in Japan in which his sense of identity as a Japanese American was transformed. In Where the Body Meets Memory, Mura focuses on his experience growing up Japanese American in a country which interned both his parents during World War II, simply because of their race. Interweaving his own experience with that of his family and of other sansei-third generation Japanese Americans-Mura reveals how being a "model minority" has resulted in a loss of heritage and wholeness for generations of Japanese Americans. In vivid and searingly honest prose, Mura goes on to suggest how the shame of internment affected his sense of sexuality, leading him to face troubling questions about desire and race: an interracial marriage, compulsive adultery, and an addiction to pornography which equates beauty with whiteness. Using his own experience as a measure of racial and sexual grief, Mura illustrates how the connections between race and desire are rarely discussed, how certain taboos continue to haunt this country's understanding of itself. Ultimately, Mura faces the most difficult legacy of miscegenation: raising children in a world which refuses to recognize and honor its racial diversity. Intimate and lyrically stunning, Where the Body Meets Memory is a personal journey out of the self and into America's racial and sexual psyche. About the Author: David Mura is a writer, memoirist, poet and performance artist who brings a unique perspective to our multi-racial and multi-cultural society. A Sansei or third-generation Japanese American, Mura has written two memoirs: Turning Japanese: Memoirs of a Sansei, which won a 1991 Josephine Miles Book Award from the Oakland PEN and was listed in the New York Times Notable Books of Year, and Where the Body Meets Memory: An Odyssey of Race, Sexuality and Identity. Mura's second book of poetry, The Colors of Desire, won the Carl Sandburg Literary Award from the Friends of the Chicago Public Library. Mura's memoirs, poems essays, plays and performances have won wide critical praise and numerous awards. Their topics range from contemporary Japan to the legacy of the internment camps and the history of Japanese Americans, to critical explorations of an increasingly diverse America.


In the Community MARK HARRIS - FIVE CAME BACK - Feb 26 2015 8:00 pm. In Pictures at a Revolution, Mark Harris turned the story of the five movies nominated for Best Picture in 1967 into a landmark work of cultural history, a book about the transformation of an art form and the larger social shift it signified. In Five Came Back, he achieves something larger and even more remarkable, giving us the untold story of how Hollywood changed World War II, and how World War II changed Hollywood, through the prism of five film directors caught up in the war: John Ford, William Wyler, John Huston, Frank Capra, and George Stevens. It was the best of times and the worst of times for Hollywood before the war. The box office was booming, and the studios’ control of talent and distribution was as airtight as could be hoped. But the industry’s relationship with Washington was decidedly uneasy— hearings and investigations into allegations of corruption and racketeering were multiplying, and hanging in the air was the insinuation that the business was too foreign, too Jewish, too “un-American” in its values and causes. Could an industry this powerful in shaping America’s mind-set really be left in the hands of this crew? Following Pearl Harbor, Hollywood had the chance to prove its critics wrong and did so with vigor, turning its talents and its business over to the war effort to an unprecedented extent. No industry professionals played a bigger role in the war than America’s most legendary directors: Ford, Wyler, Huston, Capra, and Stevens. Between them they were on the scene of almost every major moment of America’s war, and in every branch of service—army, navy, and air force; Atlantic and Pacific; from Midway to North Africa; from Normandy to the fall of Paris and the liberation of the Nazi death camps; to the shaping of the message out of Washington, D.C. As it did for so many others, World War II divided the lives of these men into before and after, to an extent that has not been adequately understood. In a larger sense—even less well understood—the war divided the history of Hollywood into before and after as well. Harris reckons with that transformation on a human level—through five unforgettable lives—and on the level of the industry and the country as a whole. Like these five men, Hollywood too, and indeed all of America, came back from the war having grown up more than a little. ALFRED J. LOPEZ - JOSE MARTI: A REVOLUTIONARY LIFE - Feb 27 2015 8:00 pm. José Martí (1853–1895) was the founding hero of Cuban independence. In all of modern Latin American history, arguably only the "Great Liberator" Simón Bolívar rivals Martí in stature and legacy. Beyond his accomplishments as a revolutionary and political thinker, Martí was a giant of Latin American letters, whose poetry, essays, and journalism still rank among the most important works of the region. Today he is revered by both the Castro regime and the Cuban exile community, whose shared veneration of the "apostle" of freedom has led to his virtual apotheosis as a national saint. In José Martí: A Revolutionary Life, Alfred J. López presents the definitive biography of the Cuban patriot and martyr. Writing from a nonpartisan perspective and drawing on years of research using original Cuban and U.S. sources, including materials never before used in a Martí biography, López strips away generations of mythmaking and portrays Martí as Cuba's greatest founding father and one of Latin America's literary and political giants, without suppressing his public missteps and personal flaws. In a lively account that engrosses like a novel, López traces the full arc of Martí's eventful life, from his childhood and adolescence in Cuba, to his first exile and subsequent life in Spain, Mexico City, and Guatemala, through his mature revolutionary period in New York City and much-mythologized death in Cuba on the battlefield at Dos Ríos. The first major biography of Martí in over half a century and the first ever in English, José Martí is the most substantial examination of Martí's life and work ever published. About the Author: Born in New York City to Cuban parents and raised in Miami, Alfred J. López is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Purdue University. He is the author or editor of three previous books, including José Martí and the Future of Cuban Nationalism. López was the founding editor of The Global South, a leading globalization studies journal, and his work has also appeared in top journals such as American Literature, Comparative Literature, and South Atlantic Quarterly, among many others. JEFF SEYMOUR - THE REAL LIFE ACTOR - Feb 28 2015 7:00 pm. There is a sense that permeates most acting classes which promotes the idea that acting is hard and you need to do a bunch of traditional steps if you’re ever going to get anywhere. The flame of this concept is kept lit for two reasons. One is tradition. Successful actors and teachers in our theatrical history supposedly believed in or espoused such ideas and two; it is easier for teachers and actors to follow a path that is well worn. Actors feel intimidated to challenge the ideas and teachings of past masters. But isn’t that exactly how every field of endeavor evolves? Think of where we’d be in science or medicine or sports if no one questioned past methods or tried to discover new ones. This book will show you an approach that is direct and to the point, an approach that will be far easier to remember and utilize. We’ll use real life. We call it acting only because people are watching. "If you're an actor, this book will restore your sanity." Steven Pressfield, Author: The War of Art, Turning Pro, The Legend of Bagger Vance. About the Author: Jeff Seymour has been an acting coach for 34 years. He began his career in the entertainment industry in 1979 in Los Angeles, California, and began teaching in 1980. Early on, while working in television as an actor, he designed and built The Gnu Theater which went on to become one of LA's most awarded and respected theaters. Jeff directed and produced all the shows there. He spent 11 years in Canada working in the film and television industry and starred in three different T.V. series, including Jeff Ltd, which he co-created and co-wrote. Jeff was one of the directors and executive producers. He has won the Canadian Emmy and has been nominated a total of four times. He has travel through the United States as well and Canada and Australia teaching his highly successful Acting and the Business Seminars.


In the Community NIKKI MOUSTAKI WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY RICHARD BLANCO AND CARIDAD MCCORMICK - The Bird Market of Paris - Mar 2 2015 6:30 pm. “I've long been a devotee of Nikki Moustaki's poetry. Now, her keen eye, deft language, and startling voice shine just as brilliantly in her memoir, The Bird Market of Paris, a work of remarkable honesty, proving the power and exuberance of her prose. The wisdom of an exceptional grandfather, a passion for birds, and the darkness of addiction—all spun together by Moustaki's gift for finding just the right words, at the right time—give life to this epiphany-provoking gem of a story, skillfully crafted, vivid and rich with feeling.” —Richard Blanco, Presidential Inaugural Poet and author of The Prince of los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood. In eloquent and sometimes devastating prose, award-winning literary poet and life-long bird lover Nikki Moustaki reveals the deeply personal story of her alcohol addiction and her remarkable relationship with her grandfather in The Bird Market of Paris. Moustaki, an only child growing up in 1980s Miami, spent most of her time with her grandfather, Poppy—a successful evening-gown designer, riveting storyteller, and bird expert—who was her mentor and dearest companion. As a young girl, Moustaki attended the ballet, classical concerts, and “grown-up” parties with Poppy where she met the who’s who of Miami society: Walter Cronkite complimented her wildly curly hair, and Dionne Warwick wondered if she wanted to become a singer. She walked in Poppy’s runway shows in miniature versions of his signature designs and was doted on by rail-thin models. But Moustaki most cherished the moments at home with Poppy and his birds. Poppy’s affection for birds was contagious. He taught Moustaki to hypnotize chickens, care for baby birds, and regaled her with stories of the famed bird market in Paris. By the time she was a young adult, Moustaki’s flock had ballooned to more than 120 birds, many of which she hand-raised; however, by that time her attachment to alcohol had taken hold as well. In raw and harrowing detail, Moustaki recounts how her obsession with booze overtook her obsession with birds and left her living on the fringe where ice cream and Kahlua for breakfast, port wine for lunch and dinner, blackouts, and trips to the emergency room were routine. While in graduate school in New York City, Poppy died, which only sent her deeper into an alcoholic spiral. After one particularly traumatic blackout, Moustaki vows to seek help and get sober. Her descriptions of the unraveling addicted mind are poignant and honest, and we join her, through relapse and recovery, as she travels to Paris to find the bird market in an attempt to honor her beloved Poppy—and where she experiences a surprising, redemptive outcome. About the Author: Nikki Moustaki is the author of twenty-five books on the care and training of exotic birds. She holds an MA in creative writing, poetry, from New York University, an MFA in creative writing, poetry, from Indiana University, and an MFA in creative writing, fiction, from New York University. She has received a National Endowment for the Arts grant in poetry, as well as many other national writing awards. She splits her time between New York City and Miami Beach. OPERATION SHOWER is coming to Miami! Operation Shower is a non-profit organization dedicated to celebrating and honoring military families by hosting joyful baby showers. The event will be held in Doral, FL on March 1st, 2015. Prospective moms that meet the criteria outlined in the flyer should inquire with the POC, Rachel Homniok. Please apply early due to limited space. Rachel.r.homniok.mil@mail.mil, 305-437-0846.

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