LRN is scum: Let me say that as a fan of reggae, I was pleased that you recognized a few facts about Jamaicans in South Florida (“Reggae-fyin’,” Rebecca Meiser, November 13). This is a group of immigrants that is making an impressive mark on our region, politically, culturally, and –…
Something unusual happened on Monday, September 9, 2002. Keith Gross was late for work. A 24-year-old with tanned white skin and brown hair cropped short on the sides, Gross was known around Kitchens to Go in Fort Lauderdale as a firebrand who spoke his mind. But during the five years…
Dayo stands with his hands on his hips, his white cotton Ralph Lauren T-shirt tucked into the band of his dressy black cargo pants. His feet, clad in a pair of red Adidas three-stripers, tap impatiently. It’s the second day of casting for the new Jamaican reggae video he’s directing,…
Peter Deutsch has been giving it to Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas good. For the past few months, the Pembroke Pines congressman has been playing the Elliot Ness — or Eliot Spitzer, if you prefer — of the U.S. Senate race. Both Democrats, of course, are running for the Florida seat…
Who knew that the hand of fate was the kind of extremity that no hygienic person would want to touch? The crusty knuckled force had its way with me one recent Monday night about 9 p.m. when the Night Court mobile sputtered to a stop outside of Jiggles II strip…
Give New Times the key to the public treasury: I want to commend Chuck Strouse and Susan Eastman for their insightful November 6 article (“Bring Us the Ballpark”) about the myopia of Broward County leaders. The Marlins are the one team in South Florida that can bring tourists and locals…
Dr. Death is sweating like hell. His tree-trunk legs are planted on the wrestling-ring mat as he peers over the edge at a ruddy-faced 16-year-old named Travis. The 43-year-old’s face is leathery, and his mullet and carefully trimmed reddish beard are soaked with sweat. He’s slightly hunched forward, and his…
Miami is the past. Overdeveloped. Underclothed. Full of itself. It doesn’t deserve baseball. Broward and Palm Beach counties are the future. Forward-looking. More cosmopolitan. Their bases are loaded with billionaires. Club President Dave Samson is oblivious. Rename ’em the “Miami Marlins,” he says. The “economics don’t work” in Broward even…
Marla Somerstein, a 22-year-old Fort Lauderdale resident working in the finance department of the “Bob Graham for President” campaign, had just returned from Yom Kippur last month when she turned on Larry King Live. It was, in effect, that suspendered CNN blowhard who delivered Somerstein’s pink slip. Graham (“Dick Gephardt…
We’re being robbed blind — $100 million blind. That’s how much money a couple of politically connected developers stand to make on a medical office building they’re set to construct for the taxpayer-funded North Broward Hospital District. When the $30 million project near Broward General Hospital on South Andrews Avenue…
The dark side of the Sunshine State: I read Susan Eastman’s October 30 article (“Death and Doubts”) with interest and wanted to let you know one of Florida’s best-kept secrets. We have the highest rate of lynchings of black men in the union, per capita. Nothing like a little history…
Stephen shows me the digital face of his cell phone. It reads, “Evil Bitch.” “Misty put it on there,” the talkative bleach-blond said as he set the phone down next to a stack of singles. “That’s what she calls me.” We’re waiting, along with a few scattered groups in the…
It rained all night on May 27. Early the next morning, Henry Drummer and his wife, Bernice, stopped by the house of Bernice’s mother, Juanita Lumpkin, in southeast Belle Glade. Juanita had recently suffered a stroke. After checking on her mom, Bernice left $10 in bus fare so her 32-year-old…
Baseball is the most superstitious sport. It’s got something to do with the cosmic rotation of the ball, the 60 feet of deception from mound to home plate, and the damning difficulty of hitting that makes even the best batters miserable failures two-thirds of the time. Or maybe it’s because…
Jackie Johnson is just about everybody’s favorite weather chick and television feature reporter. The WSVN-TV Channel 7 hottie is “America’s sexiest weather girl,” says Playboy.com; several local publications, including this one, have dubbed her outstanding television weather forecaster in their “best of” issues. With that cute little Barbie figure of…
Those impulsive homeless geeks: Regarding Eric Alan Barton’s article covering the homeless guy who got sent from West Palm Beach to New York via bus, am I, or we, supposed to feel sorry for this guy (“Shipped Off,” October 23)? Throughout the article, it’s painfully clear that “Homeless Joe” continues…
There were no trophies, no overbearing parents beaming at their bed-headed little superathletes, and no speed-challenged children being left behind. In the banquet hall of the famed Swimming Hall of Fame on Fort Lauderdale Beach last Sunday night, it was just me, electronic dance mixes, and a horde of shirtless…
At the end of rows of neatly manicured lawns, freshly polished SUVs, and lush green palms is a long, black, iron gate, behind which are hundreds of marble headstones. From a distance, these chunks of South Florida history look like pale thumbs protruding from the earth. This land backs up…
It’s been too long since Joe Buffalino has smiled. We’ve been in the rumbling Greyhound bus for going on 30 hours now, and any sign of happiness has long passed into boredom. But he has reason to smile now. From behind the chemical plants spread like moss over northern New…
A lot of people are whining about World Series tickets. Saying Ticketmaster screwed them, that viperish brokers are charging too much money, that none of it is fair. They’re right. It’s an ugly business. But I’m going to give you an almost sure-fire method to see the Marlins play the…
“She’s hot and horny and double busty,” says the DJ at T’s in West Palm Beach. “Guys, put your hands together for former governor candidate Mary Carey.” Out prances South Florida’s own Mary Carey, the Broward County-bred porn star turned politician, in a horned hat and leopard pelts over her…
2:18:03 p.m.: Much too late to be lying in bed. Punch the pillow. Worry about my, ugh, image. Do people like me? Do they respect me? Do they think it’s silly that I use initials in my byline? 2:20 p.m.: Drink mango-banana-nectarine smoothie in the kitchen. Feeling raw, vulnerable. Deadline…
