Miami News Blog

This week's feature tells the story of a photographer-turned-pimp, a "mansion" full of prostitutes, and a big (albeit accidental) bust by Miami-Dade police officers.

The first page of L.G.'s diary.

​While reporting the story, New Times inherited some unusual files. They included pimp Hugo Gonzalez's "business" documents, which were as tidy as they were pornographic. (Think naked hooker photos next to the tax returns.) There were also receipts for his girls' STD tests, plastic surgeries, and hair colorings.

Diary entries -- taken from a box of evidence -- were the most personal. One journal came from a 17-year-old witness named "L.G," who informed cops that Gonzalez made her call him "Daddy." In the writings, she tallies all of the men she has slept with inside the million-dollar Glenvar Heights home. Then she lists the drugs she has done, and the money she has made. In a disturbing twist -- or should I say more disturbing? -- the entries are decorated with My Little Pony stickers, smiley-faces, and happy little hearts.

Here's a glimpse into L.G.'s mind. (Name has been removed; click to enlarge.)
More entries after the jump.

​It's almost time for the Holidays, which means it's time to cover your house in lights, find a present for your weird uncle Adolfo, and, oh right, the annual War on Christmas.

The American Family Association kicked things off early this year by calling for a two month boycott on Gap Inc.

"The Gap is censoring the word Christmas, pure and simple. Yet the company wants all the people who celebrate Christmas to do their shopping at its stores? Until Gap proves it recognizes Christmas by using it in their newspaper, radio, television advertising or in-store signage, the boycott will be promoted," reads their website (which also has a page on how Nazis started the War on Christmas).

But Gap's Ad this year, done by our favorite Coconut Grove-based Ad Agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky actually does use the word Christmas, as in "Go Christmas, Go Channuka, Go Kwanza, Go Solstice."

Is it just us, or does Family Feud invariably pit a white family against a black family? It's like the show's producers are daring you to not root for your own race, like the O.J. Simpson trial all over again. It could be argued that race relations in America will not take the next step until Family Feud is off the air - which will never happen because there will always be some broke, obscure former sitcom bit character willing to host the show. (The word in Tinseltown is that once the Boss from Seinfeld kicks the bucket, the fat cop-dad from Family Matters is eager for the gig.)

This Thanksgiving, Feud devotees will get a break from the ol' whites vs. blacks race war when a Miami family, shockingly surnamed Perez, will try its luck at naming what the rest of America thinks is in the bathroom cabinet besides toothpaste.

No word yet on the identity of the opposing family. There's always a chance this could be a Latino vs. Asian episode -- a precious event that occurs at roughly the same frequency as a Halley's comet sighting. 

This Feud might just be seminal enough to deserve a live blog session -- and around that time Thanksgiving afternoon, Riptide will be looking for any excuse to get out of mashing potatoes and husking corn.

​Franz A. Wakefield, a Miami resident, claims that he not only came up with the idea and names of Apple's entire iPod, iTunes, and iPhone line, but that actress Sarah Jessica Parker totally screwed him over in the deal. 

Fact: It is not truly the Holidays in Miami until you hear the Santa's Enchanted Forest (at Tropical Park! on Palmetto! and Bird Road!) jingle. We may not have snow, and roasting chest nuts, and all the other trappings of a northern Christmas, but damn it we have this jingle (And lights! Food! Rides! And so much more!).

And the time is here, as Santa's Enchanted Forest opens Thursday with special guest Dolphin star Jason Taylor, who will be lighting the 92 foot tree. Taylor will be there to support his Jason Taylor Children's Learning Center.

It's two amazing Miami legends coming together. Hopefully he'll bust out his dance moves and do some choreography to the jingle. Please. Pretty please.

Problem is, we haven't heard the jingle on air yet. Please, someone tell us they're still using it.

Peacock Park

​Riptide has a question for all of those crazy Coconut Grovites. In the past year, what spectacular little spit of land has been used as the dumping ground for a large dead goat, the home of a five-foot-long saltwater crocodile, and a bum fort turned junkyard. 

The answer: the mangroves around Peacock Park.

In the 1970s, the coastline forest didn't exist. Miami Herald Neighbors columnist Glenn Terry tells Riptide: "When I arrived, the shores of Peacock Park looked like the shores of Maui." The once tiny trees were planted in the early 1980s during an environmental improvement project, using city money. Nearly 20 years later, a wealthy developer and vitamin peddler pushed to have them removed but failed.

via Save the Manatee

​For the past few days, a manatee known as Ilya has experience a fate worse than death: He's been stuck in New Jersey.

Marine scientists have tracked Ilya as he's made his way up and down the East Coast for the past ten years, even going as far as Massachusetts this summer. But the manatee recently went missing, before being spotted off the coast of Linden, New Jersey, near an oil refinery, trying to find warm water. Scientists feared water temperatures might be too cold for the sea cow to make his way home to Florida on his own, so after a search, they pulled the manatee from New Jersey waters Monday.

After a short stay at the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine, he was put on a plane this morning and is expected to arrive today at Miami Seaquarium, where he'll recuperate from whatever horrible things happened to him in New Jersey.

Gus Garcia-Roberts

​The world's largest rubber band ball stands six feet seven inches tall and has a circumference of 25 feet. It took five years for Joel Waul of Lauderhill to create, weighs more than 9,400 pounds, and contains approximately 720,000 rubber bands. The outer layers consist of multicolored industrial-size bands that weigh several pounds each.

Photo by Ron Magill

Not the kind of clown you find at Cirque du Soleil.

​Finding a place to take the peewees for a wholesome Halloween scare can be a daunting chore in this town. But the folks over at Miami's Metrozoo neatly fit the bill with Dr. Wilde's Screamatorium, the zoo's first full-scale family friendly fright emporium, featuring 7,000 square feet of graveyards and ghouls.

This haunted house was created by a special event design outfit called Flore de Lisa which has crafted props and effects for Universal Studios in the past.

We recently rounded up a posse of kindergarten and first graders to check out the heart-shuddering surprises and devilish diversions waiting inside.

The grim reaper greeted us at the door with a denuded femur in hand. Before entering, the tykes were each given a glow stick to keep the monsters and zombies at bay.

Silas Llanes, an adventuresome seven-year-old Carver Elementary School student waved his glowing wand at a killer clown that appeared from behind an eerily lit fish tank to terrorize the tykes. Llanes zapped the clown with his best Harry Potter banishing curse, prompting 23-year-old Kenneth Rossi to lift his mask and calm the lad down.

toshio via flickr cc

​Mary, a straight-talking senior citizen, is the kind of woman who would jump in front of a car to save a family of ducklings. So you can imagine the sense of horror when -- lying in bed one night -- she heard the sound of a mother duck in pain.

She snuck outside to investigate but found only an empty nest near her lakeside home in a five-block retirement community called Romont, near North Star Lake, where small white houses back up to canals. Feathers were strewn across the grass. And in the distance: the sound of a car engine starting.

Until last year, a hundred or so fowl nested there. Today there are fewer than a dozen. It got her thinking: Where have the ducks in my neighborhood gone?

Several months ago, neighbors began noticing a beat-up white van regularly parked by the lake. On its side, a magnetic sign read, "Pigeon and Duck Removal."

Doesn't the whole "balloon boy hoax" boondoggle feel like something that should have happened in South Florida? It's one of those things where if you try to understand what might have motivated somebody to do something so dumb, you can feel your own brain melting a bit. Did the parents think that once the police were informed that it was actually just a big joke, and that the missing kid was in the garage playing Pokemon, that the cops would have a big chuckle and give the kid a lollipop? Are we living in a Dennis the Menace strip?

Anyway. We have three more regional morons to inaugurate. The envelopes, please...

​1. Florida Memorial University's Dirty Harry

We're referring, of course, to the yet-unidentified security guard who pulled his handgun and pointed it indiscriminately at a crowd of unarmed students. OK, that's dumb -- especially when one of the students is holding an iPhone in the air. The kid is not trying to get a better connection, Sarge -- he's filming you! But the dumbest part about the whole thing was the way the square-badge held his gun: sideways. What in hell is this, Menace II Society? By the way, the best part of the video is how none of the students shows the slightest reaction when he pulls the gun. This is Miami, dude: If you want to scare somebody, you better bring a bazooka. 

Should've taken the family to the World Erotic Art Museum instead.

​If you haven't yet played or heard of Miami Shark, allow us to set the scene: You are a shark in the waters surrounding Miami. You are angry and hungry. You eat flocks of ducks and people, and soar into the air to drag airplanes into the ocean. Explosions ensue. Basically, Miami Shark is the greatest videogame ever.

The game was developed by Felix Wiesner (Wiesi), a Flash artist who calls Hamburg, Germany, his home. Miami New Times recently probed the mind of the developer to find out more about this insane game.

New Times: What was the inspiration behind Miami Shark?

Wiesi: One day I was trying random words on Google Picture search and stumbled over a pretty famous fake photo from 2002 which shows a great white shark attacking an Air Force Hawk helicopter and I thought, Wow, this is hilarious; I have to make a game out of this!

Before.

​South Florida's elite graffiti crew MSG might have lost one of its most prolific taggers, as reported here last week, but it looks like the remaining artistes are picking up the slack. And while Riptide, for legal reasons, remains firmly against vandalizing other people's property, this still wins our heart as the best defacement we've seen in a long time. As touted on his crew's own website, MSGCartel.com, local graffiti legend Crome recently performed a big-schnoz customization of Miami's creepiest landmark: the Don Bailey Carpets advertisement along I-95 displaying the business's pale namesake in a nude recline.

MSGCartel.com

After.

We called the carpet king Bailey himself for his take on the graffiti -- but first, for our own edification, some sort of explanation of the advertisement that's put us off our croissant on many a morning commute.

Fans of obscure beefcake know his nude pose was once topical: When he first had it painted 38 years ago, Bailey was inspired by Burt Reynolds' April 1972 Cosmopolitan spread in which the Smokey and the Bandit star forever tainted a bearskin rug. At that time, Bailey says, he had just recently quit a janitorial job to invest $5,000 in savings into his start-up carpet business in a warehouse on the then-desolate block of 8300 Biscayne Boulevard. "I saw how Reynolds got so much publicity when he was the first man to ever pose nude in a major magazine," recalls the old-school entrepreneur. "I immediately told an artist to paint me a 20 [foot]-by-40 [foot] mural of me in the same pose. Business was slow, with maybe two women a day coming in to look at carpet. The day after the mural went up, we started getting 15 to 25 people a day."

Head over to the merry old land of Wales where they are less than familiar with the joys of America's favorite sport, and mention "Dolphins Football," and the wildcat offense might not be the first thing that comes to mind. Depending on how imaginative your new Welsh friend is, he might giggle at the thought of actual dolphins playing soccer.

Well, scientists have now documented dolphins of the coast of Wales attempting to bend it like Beckham. From Asylum:

Marine biologists off the coast of Wales witnessed a bottlenose dolphin swimming under a jellyfish and flicking it six feet in the air with its tail, apparently engaging in a playful game of soccer. Not only is this a previously unseen behavior in marine mammals, it's also the only form of soccer that could conceivably take off in America.

Yes, thankfully, there is video. The dolphins might not be as accurate as They might not be as accurate as Dan Carpenter, but when they are they can flip the unsuspecting jelly fish six feet clear in the air.

via Natalie Dee

​How hot is it? It's so hot that Kanye West spoke at a Taylor Swift fan convention just so he could enjoy the chilly reception. Har, har! No? Sorry. 

LandSharks are lame. Swimming sharks are so passé. But a flying shark? Now that's a good time. That's the kind of awesome thing that could theoretically wreck sweet, sweet havoc on this city. 

 

​There's nothing quite like a little lighthearted controversy when you're trying to get PR. So luckily for the author of the upcoming South Beach tell-all Miami Babylon, Gerald Posner, some behind-the-scenes bitch fights made it to the New York Post this morning. 
"Miami is a town where they will give a party for the opening of an envelope," Posner tells the Post. "When you can't get a party in Miami, it's the ultimate sign you've stepped on toes."

​Mental_Floss has an interesting little list making the rounds (in case you didn't know, the future of journalism is here, and it is lists, lots and lots of lists): 11 Things Wal-Mart Has Banned.

One of the items stemmed from a complaint at a Miami Wal-Mart in 1995. The mega-chain was selling T-shirts with a character from Dennis the Menace proclaiming, "Someday a woman will be president!" According to news reports at the time, the store had sold about two-thirds of the shirts before a single Miami misogynist complained. The store pulled the rest of the tees, and an exec in the corporate office declared that the shirt's message "goes against Wal-Mart's family values."

Somewhere Hillary Clinton was surely fuming. Meanwhile, Sarah Palin was running for mayor of Wasilla, where she would enact policies ironically credited with bringing Wal-Mart to the town.

Also on the list is an incident where Canadian Wal-Marts got caught selling Cuban-manufactured pajamas, which caused an uproar in the States when Wal-Mart execs decided they couldn't sleep soundly at night in their commie PJs.

Last year, Miamian Tamien Bain -- an ex-con who had served time for robbing a McDonald's -- crafted a rap that nearly won a marketing contest for that same fast-food chain. Now some local high schoolers are finalists in a national dance contest for Baskin-Robbins. Maybe our city has an industry besides tourism after all. Pittsburgh had steel, Detroit has cars, we have inane jingles.  

The Cudettes, a dance troupe from Coral Reef Senior High, are shooting for the Ice Cream and Cake Dance Video contest's $10,000 grand prize to fund a trip to a national dance competition. View and vote for their video below. But beware: The Trick Daddy-on-meth soundtrack -- Ice cream and cake, do the ice cream and cake -- will haunt your dreams.

​Tina Brown's Daily Beast website gave every American city with a population above 1 million an impromptu "IQ" test, and, well, Miami might need to be moved into some remedial classes.

Out of the 55 cities ranked, Miami came in at 39, with a Daily Beast-assigned IQ of 78. The score takes into account the percentage of citizens with bachelor's and master's degrees, nonfiction book sales, number of colleges per capita, and voter turnout in the last election.

We are lumped in with Broward, and these random listicle rankings always make us wonder if the authors got their data correct. They're using the population of Broward and Miami-Dade combined, so does the data pertain to the entire area, just Miami-Dade, or the city of Miami? Of course, none of these lists ever discloses the data, so take these things with a grain of salt.

In case you're wondering, Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, came in first with an IQ of 170, while Fresno, California, came in at the bottom with an IQ of 3.

Al Gore, inventor of the Internet, founded Current TV. You might have heard of it, considering two journalists affiliated with the channel were held captive in North Korea until Gore's old boss Bill Clinton went to save them.

So sometimes the channel is home to important, hard-hitting global journalism. Other times it is just dumb filler done on the cheap. Like the above clip, in which they decide to get to the bottom of whether there is anything to Miami besides "beaches, boobs, and drinking."

So they ask two other Current TV hosts, Jason Silva and Max Lugavere, UM grads. Basically it is every cliché you've heard about Miami when someone tries to explain away the other clichés. Also: Mokai is still a hot spot despite it being closed, Mynt was "legendary," and the cost of living is apparently really low. Hmm.

Congratulations, William!

​So the Marlins are shut out of the playoffs again, and the Dolphins have yet to win a game. But when it comes to moronic behavior, South Florida is always the reigning champion. With our apologies to Tomas Regalado -- who, if you missed it, had a publicist brazenly lie to a New Times reporter about once raising funds for a convicted terrorist -- we're going to bestow our top Moron of the Week award to an accused armed robber in major need of a GPS.

The handsome fellow to the right is one William Gaston, a 55-year-old Cuban-born homeless roofer from Kentucky. (We swear, sometimes police reports read like absurdist poetry.) At 10:40 Tuesday night, according to cops, Gaston and a 50-something crony, toting a FedEx package, walked up to a home around the University Park area. When a middle-age man named Bernie Lugo answered the door, they pushed him inside and began pistol-whipping him. Lugo's 22-year-old daughter, Christine, who was sleeping in an upper bedroom, heard the commotion and came rushing downstairs, pleading with the men to stop.

The aged thugs herded them both into a bedroom and began "demanding cash and drugs." The bewildered victims responded "repeatedly" they "did not know what they were talking about."

From the police account, it seems Gaston and pal were trying to pull an Omar-from-The Wire in robbing an illegal drug operation -- but they had the wrong house. If the presence of a father and daughter didn't tip them off, an abuela certainly should have. As Gaston kept Bernie and Christine captive, his friend brought down 72-year-old Lucia Cabrera, Bernie's mom, and the aspiring robbers tied their victims' hands using plastic ties.

C. Stiles

Yes, he braids it.

​On Justin Shaw's forearms just below the elbow, there are silky light-blond masses of hair. The curly tufts might look at home on the chin of an albino or the skull of Barbie. The longest of these hairs could stretch the diameter of a large grapefruit. For this, Justin hopes to be immortalized forever -- or at least until a guy with longer arm hair comes around.

The 28-year-old Kentucky-born professional drummer, who can usually be found playing Journey covers at Coconut Grove's Crazy Pianos, realized in high school he had freakishly long arm hair. He developed a great fondness for his tufts, even once severing ties with a friend who drunkenly tried to set the hairs on fire. He'll never cut them: "I'm scared it will be like Samson from the Bible," he explains.

"It creeps people out," ruminates Stephanie Ellis, Justin's girlfriend. "But I don't mind it at all."

Hurricane season has come and gone. But in South Florida, it rains morons all year long. Let's take a look at the awe-inducing numbskulls who turned our region into the short-bus of the nation this week.

Luis Miguel Cordero

​1. The Alleged Teenage Horse Killers

Hey, we have no doubt that a year ago, brutally killing pet horses and selling their meat on the black-market was a swell racket. But when reporters in Sweden are writing about the Florida horse slaughter and there's a $12,000 bounty on your head, it may be time to put away the Mr. Ed-stained machete for a few months.

Not only are the police going to assign more man-hours to the case, but when you get caught, the jury and judge are going to throw the book at you. Notice how you're being held without bond? Ever heard of an animal-abuse defendant, besides Michael Vick, not being granted bail? Not to mention that you clearly stole Owen Wilson's nose -- how'd you plan to get away with that?

2. The Old Man Who Slipped in His House and Shot Himself With a Shotgun

So maybe it's bad karma to mock a 77-year-old dude for nearly killing himself. But come on, this is Florida; who here doesn't know the proper way to take a shower while holding a shotgun? Besides, he's expected to live.

​Tomorrow a Nintendo character will roam the streets of Miami, daring you to catch him. Sadly, it won't be a Pokémon monster. But coming across a puzzle-loving British professor will still be fun, right? 

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals was founded in 1980 as an animal rights group. Today it's the premier producer of subversive sexual pop-culture fodder. It's gotten to the point where people talk more about PETA's tacky tactics than their actual message. Shouldn't they get back to the business of saving cocks, not teasing ours?

Tomorrow at noon, PETA will send out scores of topless protesters to Bayfront Park adorned in little more than body paint and fish fins and holding signs like "Fishing Kills" and "Gutted Alive." This might have been a more productive protest if we weren't so sick of PETA sexing up everything it does. To prove the point, we've rounded up some of PETA's most ridiculously raunchy advertising.

1. I'd Rather Go Naked Than Fade into Obscurity. 
​PETA first dipped its hand into eroticism with the "I'd rather go naked than wear fur" campaign. At first, it starred supermodels such as Christy Turlington and Naomi Campbell, but lately has relied on perennial D-listers such as Holly Madison and Khloé Kardashian and massive amounts of Photoshop. What might have been clever the first time around is getting kind of old, and almost always brings more attention to whatever minor celeb they can get to strip (almost always a skinny lady, more often light-skinned than not) to any anti-fur campaigning.

2. Pamela Anderson Drops to Her Knees for Steve-O


'Cruelty Doesn't Fly'--Learn More at PETA.org.