dmdp.3 - mo Miami (Miami part two)

[david's
menu-driven planet]

the third in a series of semi-lucid
rants by david,
only on LifeLube

<<< here
for miami part one



Picture it... January, 1986...

a free moonlight cruise up and down the Intercoastal Waterway between Miami and Ft. Lauderdale; my buddy-- then attending UM Coral Gables (where he routinely showered with Vinnie Testaverde) and his YUCA Lawyer boyfriend had won it as part of a radio promotion. The boyfriend was falling for the "Skipper" (- an old white man of completely unattractive appearence, and I like Old White men) in an obvious, queer, amusing way. It was a magical evening- January, North American Continent, 76 degrees at midnite- remember, we're Illinois People-- with that dense thicket of a zillion hotel rooms and suites, glorious penthouses offered up to Sea and Sky. Almost made up for my Buddys' cramming me into the trunk of his (ostensibly rented for my visit) subcompact to drive his unraveling dealer to Lauderdale and back, or scoring me some shit to take back North- to which he reacted upon tasting-

"...IT BURNS..."!!!...and then proceeding to step on it repeatedly.

I laid in an adjacent bedroom, still closeted, whilst Buddy and boyfriend snorted and porked each other (I guess) . Very Pastel, very Reagan, very Jewish, Juban, Chinese, those days. Everybody walking around South Miami metrorail station froze-faced. I was abstaining then. Miami was already well- rehearsed as crime-addled, third world urban snakepit...a big part of it-- I thought-- was they refused to give up those crank- turned series of glass- slats and get real fucking doors.

The COCONUT GROVE ORGANIC FARMERS MARKET IS PARADISE. There's a rule with Farmers Markets and hot springs--- the more difficult the Journey, the Sweeter the Potential rewards. Taxis are plentiful and forthright but expensive, and we see the meter blasting skyward so early on this long trip as we head towards the Mainland Miami, my shower has already evaporated in the subtropical heat. I know enough about the "GAY GROVE" of Old to know that there IS NO "GAY GROVE" anymore and hasn't been in decades. Even South Beach has only 2 gay pubs left- TWIST has 5 bars in one, yes, but...TWIST was about to open the last time I was there with Larry..1991? We of course got an opening -night party invitation (had a pinwheel) and I remember our dejection at the thought that we had to return to a grey, cold, much less indolent Chicago.

In her definitive Miami true -crime book "THE CORPSE WORE A FAMILIAR FACE" Edna Buchanan described "THE GROVE" as a community of "Old trees and young people"...that's sort of reversed, what with gentrification and cyclonic defenestration but much of the Market Grounds are snug in the toes of old survivors. GLASER FARMS is much of the market- they grow locally, have their own lines of products from other countries, and have ready-made meals that smart Miamians on-the-go flock away with. The best stuff is in back- nutmilk booths, raw cacaos, fruit juice rainbows, discreetly and accurately seasoned plates of local vegan soul food. The peak comes with a ONE LOVE LIVE FOOD CANISTEL(EGGFRUIT) TART with SPROUTED ALMOND/ APRICOT CRUST and PULVERIZED CACAO DRIZZLE ($13). It's as close as you can get to eating a Miami sunset. It doesn't matter if you're seeing it from atop the onetime CENTRUST TOWER ( a rare rave for I.M. Peis firm-- is it a Truman Era refridgerator or a Brazillian reactors' cooling tower?) ) or from BAYSIDE MARKETPLACE (Miamis' Fishermans' wharf...just uncool, Man) : DUSK IN MIAMI IS PROOF THAT THERE IS A GOD.

The canistel grows from Mexico to Brazil and has an impossibly lush orange flesh that (to me at least) recalls mamey or papaya. Much of the stuff sold in these booths has backyard/ neighbor/ enthusiast/ hobbyist origins. LIke the best foods these are bittersweet- we are quickly back to 2007 via the newspaper and a recently completed $250 million hwy that has choked the natural rhythm of the ocean and is causing blooms of deadly red tide. So great the need must be to facilitatate another 10, 000 rich white guys and their manatee- ramming boats, Naples gated communities.

Here we are, 2007... We additionaly manage to biovac in the VERY HEART of South Beach, a DAMRON selection with the "Gay" scratched off their proferred card on arrival. The young black man at the desk is friendly and has a great smile however, so we don't take offense when he has no card of his own. We are across the Street from MTV -- about to move half its' Latin American operations to Buenos Aires. When we arrive at that same City (for Argentina is super-annuated Florida) it is announced that Frances Ford Coppola and Daughter had bought a hotel in the fashionable Palermo area...so that tells you where Miami-- expensive, hassly Miami-- just like L.A.- again, -is going. Conversely, any action that goes to South America South Florida gets a piece of-a vast amount of Capital right there.

We see some of that Capital on the bus ride (RIDES, plural, for me) between Miami Beaches north and south. Original Modern estates, baby bauhaus -on -the -sands, splendid revivals here and again, landscaped to the 9s, canopys cautiously resurgent, with a rare giant inching towards oldgrowth between big blows. Miami is a city of proud ancient wrex, like Carlos Zapatas' "Everglades Post-Industrial", or "Mosquito Chic" house on a nearby' beach, or his nascent Soldier Field corroding in the middle of a thronged pedestrian thoroghfare, a consumer cafe causeway. We are going to the north beach Sister establishment to the "scratched-out gay" SoBe hostelry.

Our room is expensive, EVEN LESS beach- adjacent than I'd thought, in more of a buzzered complex than hotel; housing pressure is high in MIAMI, the '6th BOROUGH' with added onus of being subtropical. Obviously a lot of less-wealthy people have been forced to North Miami Beach from other areas, yes, So Be comes to mind. There is no shortage of thug live among the immensely modest stoops, diverse and pleasant peoples. Kiss a lot of that bye-bye- the whole block across the street is about to fall to, has mammoth signs for- glowing luxury townhomes, multistory jobbers with humanoid forms perched on top. On top, very important. Not in but ON. Our building is vintage as promised and we do the universal pizza or chinese delivery, crack open some of our COCONUT GROVE ORGANIC FARMERS MARKET papayas, watch tv on a bed that's as voluminous as any we've encountered- and correspondingly saggy- middled. We wait for the bus to not- too- too- far HAULOVER BEACH for a while but it doesn't come as scheduled...then doesn't come at all...and we give up for the night.

HAULOVER BEACH IS PARADISE. A legal nude beach in North Miami. I go solo, meet a man named Don who is big on flicking himself (!) --from DuPont Circle D.C. We chat after he strikes up a conversation about how briefly I am in the water- and before and after I dip I'll be the one wearing hooded sweatshirts in the subtropics- I don't like skin cancer nor glomming the ocean with suntan oils. It is only early March but with the surging sunlight, blue sky and warm waters I'm in the Caribbean. That Miami Magic again. The water in San Francisco sports a litany of reasons not to swim. Here it's just the 300 mile long-ball of worms (more distastefull than dangerous) which lives on Florida Sewage and feeds the Stone Crabs (a renewable fishery, BTW). On our return leg home we have a 5 hour MIA layover and I come within a hair of cabbing us back to HAULOVER for a welcome -back- to- America bask but the cost of the sortie climbs past $100 and I deciede against, just as well - a brief but ruinous tropical cloudburst commences out of thin Equatorial air.