Letters for March 3-9, 2005

Urban Removal Step on the trailer trash. They can’t fight back: Eric Alan Barton’s February 10 story of the Tropical Trailer Gardens Mobile Home Park (“Trailer Trashed”) gives a deplorable example of a problem rampant in South Florida. “Investors” buy large apartment complexes or mobile home parks. They then extract…

Dynasty of Dub

Ten past 10 p.m. on a Wednesday. A secret undisclosed location in north Miami-Dade. Special guest DJ Mixette is ready to spin a late-night set for those tuning in to the illegal signal of a pirate radio station. Mark T, a fast-talking, Haitian-born impresario, is tonight’s host. His agenda: a…

Tailpipe

When authorities last week released 433 moths in Palm Beach County’s Jonathan Dickinson State Park, there was barely a whisper in the local or national press. Yet the act may prove even more significant to the Florida Everglades — one of the world’s most diverse ecosystems — than the multibillion…

Body Language

G.O.A.T., 300 SW First Ave., Ste. 105, Fort Lauderdale, 954-467-3939.

Martini Bar, 300 SW First Ave., Ste. 202, Fort Lauderdale, 954-764-4345.

Animaniacs

Barnes & Noble Bookstore in downtown West Palm Beach’s CityPlace is buzzing with the early-winter tourist crowd on this Friday night in January. Milling about the two-story bookstore, the older folks are dressed smartly for dinner, while the young set keeps it cas with T-shirts and jeans. Crystal Tilton, however,…

Rock the Vote

Ilias Tsolkas, a Greek immigrant and retired industrial engineer who now owns a business plaza and a hotel in Clearwater, talks about his son, 24-year-old Panagioti Tsolkas: “He looks like a Greek fisherman. He’s a very handsome kid. If he didn’t have that brain — that stupid brain — he…

Letters for February 24-March 2, 2005

Murder, He Wrote Barbara fights: I want to thank Bob Norman for the excellent article he wrote about the murders in Coral Springs (“Unusual Suspects, Parts 1-3,” February 3, 10, and 17). I have been a friend of Barbara Gordon’s for some time and have watched as she has done…

The Big Chil

Andy Young won the prize for being the first awake: At 2:30 a.m. the perennial chili cook-off competitor, nervous and unable to sleep, arose to download the theme song to Gilligan’s Island and burn it onto a CD. Next up was Ralph Kalar, a wiry hardass who took his first…

Tailpipe

Talk about your lunch-counter prejudice Maybe everybody doesn’t know your name at Hallandale Beach’s homey Flashback Diner, but the management has some rigid ideas about gender distinctions. A couple of weeks ago, Rachel Arce and Jay Hamlett, a lesbian couple and long-time customers, were unwinding there late at night, as…

Unusual Suspects, Part 3

This is the last in a series. To read the other parts, visit our Special Report Unusual Suspects. Not long before Rick Weed and Jane Gosnell were found dead in their bedroom, a man from their past named Roger Lee Sexton showed up at the Coral Springs estate they called…

Letters for February 17-23, 2005

No Jeff Gannon Aaronson is crystal-clear: Trevor Aaronson’s story on Tom Feeney (“Pulp Nonfiction,” February 10) was great! It pleases me to see a journalist and a publication with the balls to talk about the truth. Aaronson is no Jeff Gannon — and for that I applaud him. Jeffrey Holmes,…

Trailer Trashed

Roger McFayden slurps a spoonful of Honey Bunches of Oats from a Tupperware bowl. He eats ferociously, as if it were his first meal in a while and perhaps his last. His skin is like plastic wrap pulled tightly over his knotty bones. The hollows of his cheeks cave inward,…

Pulp Nonfiction

In the fall of 2000, Republican power broker Tom Feeney attended a meeting at Yang Enterprises in Oviedo, near Orlando, a former employee of the firm says. Feeney, who would soon become Florida’s speaker of the House, wasn’t just a politician; he was also a lobbyist. Among his clients was…

Drink and Scoot!

The Go-Ped is an annoying little scooter, a kind of cross between a kid’s foot-propelled Razor and the Vespa, those putt-putt scooters that jam European streets. Floridian motorists often see twerps on Go-Peds whizzing along sidewalks at speeds of up to 20 m.p.h., sending pedestrians leaping into hedges. It’s a…

Unusual Suspects, Part 2

Editor’s Note:The first part in the series told of the growing feud between millionaire Bobby Gordon and his wife Barbara’s friends, Rick Weed and Jane Gosnell. All four lived in Bobby’s home in Coral Springs until Barbara discovered the corpses of Rick and Jane in their bedroom. As Barbara Gordon…

Letters for February 10-16, 2005

Sesame Street Cred Why you think they call ‘im Big Bird?: Props to Jonathan Zwickel’s new direction for a kindler, gentler gangsta rap (Beatcomber, “Amerikkka’s Most Cuddled,” February 4) that the whole family will love. It may be the beginning of a new era in which homies can get as…

Entrapped

It seemed nothing more than a lustful encounter. Valarie Curry, a pretty, slender, 33-year-old black woman with straight black hair that hung in strands just above her shoulders, was an optician at a Pearle Vision store in Hollywood. Leon Mackey was a handsome, five-foot-nine, 200-pound, 30-year-old Bahamian. They met in…

Are Women Crazy?

When I was a junior in college, I lived near a girl who was a senior. She was smart, organized, and had a certain flair for fashion and decorating. I looked up to her until she, my best male friend, and I had a conversation about a mutual acquaintance during…

Unusual Suspects, Part I

She writes on a computer at her sprawling, million-dollar home in northwest Broward horse country. The office walls are covered with University of Miami sports memorabilia. That’s her husband’s stuff. Behind a steel cabinet is a loaded, pistol-handled, black, 12-gauge shotgun. That’s definitely hers. Barbara Gordon knows how to handle…

Letters for February 3-9, 2005

Good Friends Don’t make good stories: I enjoy reading New Times; in fact, for a period of time, it was the only paper I read… but I’m kind of growing tired of the “circle jerk” that’s blatantly tainting your periodical. I just find it bad journalism to interview people who…

Acid Again

The first time Thomas Lyttle dropped acid, he had a bad trip. His high school friends had to sit on his chest just to keep him from flailing around the room. Terrified, the 16-year-old thought he was going to die, or at least lose his marbles. “I took too much,”…

Prostrate Loyalty

When the time comes to reward all those who have gone to the mat to protect the Bush legacy, Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood will be there in the front row, beaming as Dubya pins the Presidential Medal of Bending Over for the Cause on her blouse. It was…