Drunken Bum Dies Scaling Fence

A panhandler died climbing over a 6-foot-tall chain-link fence while drinking beer and walking with his girlfriend from their begging site to their homeless camp, in Homestead, Florida. Juanito Pepe Garcia, 51, died Tuesday night from accidental strangulation after he fell and a strap of his heavy backpack became snagged on a top bar of the metal fence. His girlfriend, 38-year-old Kelli Jo Barkley, told police she was with him when he became trapped and told her "Ayudame cojones! Apurate, puta come-mierda! Helpy me!" according to a Homestead Police Department report. Barkley said she tried for several minutes to free him but couldn't lift the backpack. When Juanito became limp, she ran and banged on the door of a nearby home. A man who lives there called 911 to report the woman's cries that her friend was stuck on the fence and might be dead. The Homestead Fire Department and police rushed to the scene.

When a police officer arrived, Barkley waved him down and pointed to the fence. The officer found Juanito hanging with his arms limp and not breathing, the report said. His arms were through their straps and his neck was caught on the full-frame pack's chest strap, the report said. Firefighters cut through the locked fence gate to the other side and pulled Henry down. Paramedics tried to resuscitate him in an ambulance before he was pronounced dead about 10:35 p.m. Barkley said they'd been drinking beer after "flagging" for money at Campell Boulevard and U.S. 1, the report said. She said they'd climbed the fence to take a shortcut to a nearby homeless camp. In the backpack, an officer found about a dozen 40-ounce bottles full of beer, the report said.
Commentary: Those panhandling bums use the money strictly for buying booze. One less annoying bum at the intersection asking for money and stinking like rotten trash. Another Darwin Award Winner!! Congratulations! Que sapingo!

Florida Prison Corruption

Tallahassee, Florida (CNN) -- Softball, drunken orgies and a prison system run like the mafia. That's what Florida's prison secretary says he inherited when he took over Florida's prison system two years ago. The previous prison secretary used tax money to build and maintain a party house on prison grounds where prison officials held orgies.



In fact, on his first day on the job, James McDonough says he walked into his office, the same one his predecessor used, and there was crime scene tape preventing anyone from entering. "That was an indication we had a problem in the department," McDonough told CNN in an exclusive interview. McDonough revealed a startling list of alleged abuses and crimes going on inside Florida's prisons: Top prison officials admitting to kickbacks; Guards importing and selling steroids in an effort to give them an edge on the softball field; Taxpayer funds to pay for booze and women; Guards who punished other guards who threatened to report them. "Corruption had gone to an extreme," McDonough said, saying it all began at the top. "They seemed to be drunk half the time and had orgies the other half, when they weren't taking money and beating each other up." He added, "Women were treated like chattel in this department." McDonough described a bizarre prison culture among those that ran the system. He says they were obsessed with inter-department softball games and the orgies after games. "I cannot explain how big an obsession softball had become," he said. "People were promoted on the spot after a softball game at the drunken party to high positions in the department because they were able to hit a softball out of the park a couple times. The connection between the softball and the parties and the corruption and the beatings was greatly intertwined." The parties and orgies were often carried out at a waterfront ranch house built on prison grounds with taxpayer dollars, McDonough said. The house was complete with a bar, pool table and hot tub.

McDonough is a former Army colonel who commanded troops in Vietnam and Africa. He served as Florida's drug czar before taking on the job as the head of Florida's prison system, which oversees 90,000 inmates. He left his post last Thursday as secretary of Florida's Department of Corrections because, he says, he feels he has cleaned up the corruption. It's time, he said, "to turn this over to law and order people that have made this their life's goal." A Brooklyn native, McDonough says he witnessed the way the mafia worked in his youth and it provided him a keen insight into how his prison predecessor, James Crosby, operated. "It reminded me of the petty mafia I saw on the streets of Brooklyn when I was growing up in the late 1950s, early 1960s. They were petty, small-minded, thugish, violent, dangerous, outside the law, and completely intolerable for a society such as ours in the United States of America," he said.

Crosby would later plead guilty to bribery charges in relation to kickbacks from a prison vendor. He's now locked up in a federal prison. He refused CNN's request for an interview for this report. "He's serving time in a federal prison. I hope he reforms and gets out and prospers," McDonough said. He added, "When you have a rotten guy at the top, or gal at the top, it can be very invasive, and it's a cancer that needs to be excised." Getting rid of this "cancer" is exactly what McDonough says he did. McDonough fired 90 top prison officials; wardens, supervisors, colonels and majors; claiming they were corrupt or, at the very least, not to be trusted. He demoted 280 others. Criminal charges were filed against more than 40 others, and most were convicted. In addition to the orgies and other misconduct outside the cell blocks, there were other allegations of prisoners being harmed, McDonough said. "In some of the pockets of corruption that we found, they [prisoners] were being abused," he said. Among those arrested were seven officers accused of beating inmates, including five accused of forcing a prisoner to drink toilet water. All have pleaded not guilty. Tina Hayes, the director of the prison's department initiatives who has worked in the prison system for 28 years, said the atmosphere before McDonough arrived was "a little tense" with workers "always on edge." She said employees who didn't attend softball games or play on the teams were "isolated" and "pushed aside." "I used to tell staff day in and day out: Keep your head high; do what's right; you know what morally is right; you've got some ethics; don't bow down to it," Hayes told CNN. McDonough, she said, brought "standards back into the department." "People can speak out now without being afraid to say what they need to say." McDonough says the majority of the prison system's 28,000 employees were honest, hard-working people who weren't corrupt at all. But he says many of the top prison officials weren't and he believes he has weeded out "an organized vein of corruption." "They were like frat boys out of control."

790 The Ticket

Disclaimer: These are just strictly my opinions based on listening to the radio in this area for 50 years. Nothing stated here is a fact, just my opinion as a listener. I do not know any of these people personally, and they may all be the most wonderful and conscientious citizens on earth. Maybe their colleagues think they are the most talented. I only know my side of it as a listener.

790 The Ticket is the other sports radio station in South Florida. There used to be an ESPN station at around 1490 on the dial, but it did not last long. 790 The Ticket has been around for over three years. A big reason is that they partnered up with The Miami Herald and have put several Herald columnists like Dan Le Batard, Greg Cote, and Armando Salgeuro on the air regardless of talent. This is a rundown of 790 The Ticket. It starts with the owner of the station, Joel Feinberg:

Joel Feinberg, the outspoken owner of AM sports talk station 790 The Ticket, has been charged with beating up his fiance on October 23, 2007. Feinberg and his fiance had been staying at the Carmel Valley Ranch Resort. Deputies are not sure what sparked the argument, but they say Feinberg may have ''had a bad day'' at the track. He removed his fiance's $40,000 engagement ring from her finger, pushed her to the bed ''and proceeded to strike her about the head and face,'' according to a press release. The unnamed woman ran into another room, but he kicked down the door, which hit her in the back of the head, deputies said.

Feinberg stormed away, rolling a suitcase and carrying a backpack. He eluded police, their dogs and a roving highway patrol helicopter as he walked through the sprawling 400-acre tennis and golf resort nestled in the Santa Lucia Mountains. About a mile from the resort, Deputy Kevin Hockenhull spotted him walking past a shopping center and arrested him.
Feinberg was booked into the Monterey County Jail. The woman was treated and released from a local hospital.

Feinberg owns the company that leases the radio signal for The Ticket, which has a marketing partnership with The Miami Herald. Feinberg declined to comment. The Ticket had broadcast Dolphins games, but this year the team switched back to its former station, WQAM. Feinberg had sent the general manager at rival WQAM-AM (560 ) e-mails gloating about the Miami Dolphins' 0-3 start. He also surprised observers by recently calling WQAM's Neil Rogers on air and drawing a line through Joe Rose's face on the Ticket's website after the broadcaster moved to WQAM.

Sid Rosenberg hosts the morning show and replaced the terminally boring Joe Rose. Sid Rosenberg used to be the sports sidekick on the nationally syndicated Imus in the morning show. His mindless and generally clueless sports banter contributed little to the show. His off the cuff remarks ranged from claiming that Venus and Serena Williams were better suited for National Geographic than Playboy. His expertise in tennis was reflected with this comment ... "faggots play tennis." and female soccer players are "juiced up dykes."

Six weeks after being released from a substance abuse rehabilitation center, Rosenberg, got into hot water when the show turned to singer Kylie Minogue's breast cancer. Sid, in a fit of utter stupidity delivers this line ... "She won't look so pretty when she's bald with one tit." With IMUS running a camp for kids with ... get this .. CANCER the writing was on the wall for Sid. He was pulled from the Imus show and eventually ended up in Miami doing an afternoon show until Joe Rose got canned. Then Sid took over the morning drive show.

Sid Rosenberg tends to go on too long on some topics. He loves to have porn stars and similar scumbags on his show. He has a four year old daughter and yet never stops talking about porn. He often says that he is the Howard Stern of sports talk. He also has Bernie Kosar on the show nearly every day. Kosar likes to play the role of the millionaire drunken bum, and he plays it well. Kosar's scratchy voice and his dumb remarks detract a lot from Rosenberg's show. Hopefully Kosar will be sent down to The Dos Amigos soon, and Rosenberg can focus on sports. Michael Irvin is also a regular guest on Rosenberg's show. Irvin often has some interesting things to say. Unfortunately, Sid Rosenberg is another ultra-right-winger. Recently he had Ann Coulter on the show so that he could prove that she isn't anti-semitic. Sid Rosenberg is a lot more entertaining and intelligent than Joe Rose, but that is not saying much. Compared to the rest of the morning shows in Miami, Rosenberg is the best, but look at his competition: Ron and Ron, Defo in Palm Beach, Two Girls at Coast FM who spend all morning talking about their TOM and boy friends, the two punks at 93.1 FM who sound like they are about ten years old and can barely speak English and Joe Rose at WQAM.

Jorge Sedano has done some odd shows including a very annoying overnight show where he had a sleazy female co-host and they would talk trash about sports all night long. Unfortunately, 790 The Ticket seems to like trash talk on the radio and Sedano found a home. I do not listen to his show much, but he seems to have some potential for intelligent discussions and occasionally analyzes sports.

Jonathan Zaslow is the producer for Jorge Sedano and Boog Sciambi. Zaslow often is given some time on the radio, and he usually does a good job when he is doing a fill-in show.


Jon "Boog" Sciambi looks kinda scary. He apparently has a weight problem and has to go to some kind of fat farm every year to lose weight. The picture of his ugly face is above a photo of Sciambi working out by trying to pull a rubber band. Boog Sciambi used to be the voice of the Florida Marlins baseball team and then he got fired. Sciambi seems to be a nice guy, but he is really too nice. On the radio he sounds like a goofball. He often refers to the callers as "my brother" and is always talking about everyone being his brother. I guess it is some kind of religious thing, but I find it a bit irritating in the context of a sports show. Sciambi also spends all his time praising everyone. Update: The Booger has gotten a job in Atlanta. Thank heavens he can go annoy people over there. Hopefully he will become the voice of the Braves (ironic justice) and will spend the next 40 years there.

What can be said about Dan LeBatard? He has parlayed an awful sports column at The Miami Herald into a career at ESPN and radio. LeBatard is the perfect clone of the Chris Berman style of comedy sports broadcasting. LeBatard spends every afternoon singing moronic songs about various sports celebrities. He invites the listeners to call in and sing songs about sports celebrities. He has Greg Cote (pictured above, he is the guy who looks like a chipmunk) also on the station regularly and they sing songs to each other. Cote used to review movies at The Miami Herald, but is now some kind of columnist there. Stugotz is LeBatard's sidekick. At 790 The Ticket, Jon Weiner (Stugotz) is also the program director, general manager, and probably cleans the toilets too. Hank Goldberg of WQAM had originally nicknamed Weiner as Stugotz. The Urban Dictionary says: Made popular by the HBO Series "The Sopranos", stugots is from "(qu)esto cozzo" in Italian, meaning "this cock" or "this dick". Often used in reference to someone being an asshole. Perhaps the worst thing about LeBatard is that he has Terell Owens on every week to talk about Terrell Owens. What a waste.

Kevin Rogers is on at night and as a fill-in show during odd hours. He is very informative and he should be on ESPN or Fox or some other national station. Rogers is a very good talk host and I enjoy listening to him whenever he is on. Update: Kevin Rogers finally got a permanent slot. Apparently he is replacing Booger sometime in the mid-day slot. That will be a good reason to listen to AM790. Kevin Rogers does not sing songs on the radio and he is not a single man in his mid-forties fighting rumors regarding his sexual orientation.

Steve "Goldie" Goldstein is one of the worst talk show hosts ever. He used to be on the WQAM morning show as the sidekick to Joe Rose, and they literally would fall over each other trying to see who could kiss the most ass. Every time they had a guest, "Goldie" would be so far up the guy's butthole that Rose would sometimes take a shot at Goldie just so it would not be so phoney and contrived. Goldie also has a high-pitched squeeky voice, and Neil Rogers loves to make fun of Goldie. The Neil Rogers Show would regularly play spoofs of Goldie doing his show. At one point Goldie became the sidekick to Howard David at WQAM, and that had an unhappy ending too. Neil Rogers spoofed the Goldie and Howard David discussions endlessly and Goldie has always been worth a few laughs. If there is ever a bad team or any negative situation involving a sponsor of the station, you could always count on Goldie to come up with some bizarre spin so that he could talk about it as a good thing. Fortunately, Goldie is now the TV voice for the Florida Panthers hockey team and is not on radio as much. Unfortunately, 790 still uses Goldie on weekends and to do fill-in shows.

The Dos Amigos features Larry Milian and Alan Strauss trying to sound like trashy Latinos from Scarface, Que Pasa USA, or Carlito's Way. All the typical slang words are used, and they call everyone BRO-DAY (brother) with the most low-life Latino trash accent that they can muster. Listening to this show is almost funny, as the two clowns will speak in a normal sounding tone of voice and then when they switch to their Latino stereotypes they adopt a heavy gangsta accent and sound like a couple of scumbag coke dealers. Try listening to this crap for ten minutes and then you won't feel bad when Carlito gets killed at the end of Carlito's Way.

Perhaps the best thing about 790 The Ticket is that they have J.T. The Brick on late night as part of their Fox Sports Radio syndication. J.T. The Brick is ten times better than all of the staff of 790 The Ticket put together.