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Niece of the Week: CoCo Markstone

CoCo MarkstoneFormerly from Iowa, CoCo now calls Clearwater her home. When she’s not on stage performing, you will find her with a big smile at Hamburger Mary’s.

You Just Can’t Make This Stuff Up!

There is a running joke in GaYBOR that Miss Jayme at the Ybor City Wine Bar sells purses that will hold all your special sex toys. Actually, they are very cool insulated purses that will hold a fine chilled bottle of wine. After the GaYBOR Bar Crawl, two local gay residents purchased one of these purses. After a lot of holiday cheer, the two guys started to walk home in Ybor.

The police noticed two guys walking with a purse and thought it strange and also thought it might be stolen. The police turned the spotlight on these guys and in a commanding voice said, “STOP! PUT YOUR HANDS UP!” Startled, the guys put their hands up, then one tripped and fell down, fracturing two ribs and breaking the bottle of wine!

You just can’t make this stuff up!

The City’s Gift to the LGBT Community

Tampa is moving forward with their new springtime pride event, and the Tampa Bay LGBT community received a huge holiday gift from Mayor Bob Buckhorn and the City of Tampa staff. The mayor gave a thumbs up for co-sponsoring Tampa Pride, this upcoming March 26th and 27th. The City of Tampa gave the Pride committee $35,000 credit in city services. The original cost to the city was $64,000 for city services. The surprise call came to Mark and I as we were at a doctor’s appointment in south Tampa.

Kurt King, Tampa Pride Corporate Sponsorship Chair, commented, “I just don’t have words for such a great gift to our community.”

There is still a lot of work to accomplish in making the festival and parade happen. The budget is $128,000 and we have had a lot of corporations step up to the plate, giving sponsorships, donations and underwriting some event costs. We still need to get the commitments that were offered validated. Volunteers and other personnel are needed to help share the workload and fun activities.

Holiday Party at City Side

The owner of City Side, James Encke, had a great holiday party for the customers and a surprise showing of the new City Side logo and outdoor sign. The food was Italian and specially catered for the event; the dishes were excellent! Packaged presents were given out to winning ticket holders. All of this combined underscored the meaning of the holidays.

City Side is totally decked out with holiday decorations, beautiful five-foot gold wreaths behind the bar and Christmas trees that were reflected by the many floor-length mirrors.

Santa Speedo Run

ASAP’s fifth annual Santa Speedo Run had an all-time record of entrants running and participating. In addition, “Mrs. Claus in Bras” was an added incentive for all runners to enter. The one-mile run on Sunday had over 180 runners starting and ending at Centennial Park in historic Ybor City. A new women’s profile medal award was distributed to all runners.

A lot of people were wondering on this 60-degree day in Ybor, how come so many guys and girls were wearing red speedos?

Promoter J. Aller was most pleased with the runners who were committed to run, but was also pleased with the very large number of spectators, who were there to watch and cheer on friends and family members for the benefit run that went down Palm Avenue.

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