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Feb 12-18, 2003

Feb 12-18, 2003 / Vol. 19 / No. 7

Moving mountains

Henry Galvis grew up in Colombia, so it must be his 10 years in Mexico and another 15 in the States working in restaurants that gives him the expertise to run a genuine Mexican eatery that combines real food with great service. Galvis’ first Maria Bonita is still going strong in Daytona Beach, an award-winner…

Orlando Weekly Staff

Spanish lesson of the shopping kind

Tucked behind Maria Bonita is a treasure palace of tropical delights for the culinary senses and an exotic departure from everyday grocery shopping: the Plaza Gigante Supermarket (10659 E. Colonial Drive; 407-277-7688). Wander the aisles and check out the cans of tomatillos and menudo, frozen bags of guava and cases of shrimp empanadas, jars of…

Joseph Hayes

Soundsystems are inextric…

Soundsystems are inextricably intertwined with the history of Caribbean music, first emerging in Jamaica in the early ’60s as the key ingredient in high-stakes musical “cutting” contests. Producers, musicians and DJs would form “allstar” teams to create dubplate tracks to play (and toast over) at rambunctious yard parties. The hotter, fresher and better the plates,…

Jason Ferguson

No tears, just rock

And then there’s the joke about how many emo kids it takes to screw in a light bulb. The answer is five: one to do it, one to form a band about it, one to write a poem about his loss, one to publish a ‘zine about it and one to cry to his girlfriend…

Omar Perez

Which way to the frontin’?

To be brutally honest, there are better jobs than being Orlando Weekly’s official war correspondent. As I write these words, it’s Friday, Feb. 7, 2003, and I’m cooling my heels in a 60-dinar-a-night room in a Comfort Inn in downtown Baghdad. By the time this week’s issue disappears from the stands, Hans Blix will have…

Steve Schneider

Who would Jesus do?

Following a religious experience, Michael Braithwaite of the mountain village of Putney, Ky., recently converted his Love World shop (selling vibrators and other porn paraphernalia) to Mike’s Place (selling Bibles and other Christian items). However, according to a December report in the San Francisco Bay Guardian, a 31-year-old government lawyer has developed a side business…

Chuck Shepherd

Like a prayer

Orlando Weekly recently received a torrent of e-mails from a City Beautiful resident peeved at the city’s practice of prayers before council meetings. “When I was forced to sit in on prayer during a public city meeting, watch Jesus being promoted and the audience being told to say ‘amen’ … I decided it was time…

Bob Whitby

Truth in advertising

There are few things taxpayers hate more than paying a fat pension to a retired bureaucrat, especially if that bureaucrat is out-going Orlando Mayor Glenda Hood. Hood’s recent announcement that the city will be in a $26-million hole over the next two years while she prances off to Tallahassee makes paying her a monster pension…

William Dean Hinton

Potty-mouth Pete

Editor’s note: With this column, Slug officially takes a wider view of area goings- on. We’ll still write about media when it’s warranted, but we’ll also be pounding on news, politics and boneheadedness in general. It helps lower our blood pressure, so indulge us. Back when Pete Barr seemed unlikely to survive the mayoral primary,…

William Dean Hinton

Judge, jury and executioner’s mask

Donald Woods is a tall, broad-shouldered man. He has large arms, big hands and a well-fed stomach. When testifying at public hearings, as he did Jan. 23 at the County Administration Building, the Orange County undercover agent wears an unzipped leather jacket revealing a T-shirt bearing a large “sheriff” insignia. Woods has the kind of…

William Dean Hinton

The canker war

It’s a cloudy Friday morning at Dick Spears’ southwest Orange County home in the upscale Bay Hill neighborhood. Rain drizzles into Spears’ swimming pool as he sits in his screened patio, surveying the fertile mini-orchard in his backyard. With particular pride, he points to his four citrus trees — three orange, one grapefruit — that…

Jeffrey C. Billman

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