I've been mulling over all this with respect to historical context and linear tradition and dialectic materialism, and talking to my neighbors who have lived here a while, and wondering if it means anything that Suge Knight got shot here and not in L.A. or something, and like if it means that the latest installment in the fine Miami Beach tradition of gangsterism from Meyer Lansky onward is now manifesting itself in the train of moving billboards featuring gold fronts and and bling that has been traveling down Collins Ave. all weekend, at one point crashing into a black Escalade with tinted windows resulting in sort of the ideal visual spectacle of nine million cop cars with flashing lights surrounding a larger than life blow-up of the East Side Boyz running into an Escalade.

I have to go to a lot of community meetings for my job, where people talk a lot about the "thug element" that's "taking over South Beach" and where Memorial Day Weekend is often referred to as "Pimp and Ho weekend" and a lot of that is racially motivated but also just that hip hop culture and gay/artsy culture aren't always operating in harmony with one another, even if your average gay man on Miami Beach is like huge and ripped and sort of scary-looking and has a Brooklyn accent, and who you'd be as likely to call a fairy as you would an armored humvee.

There's really nothing to tie all this mulling together I guess, except that *I think* I'd rather get a free Trick Daddy frisbee from the trunk of a dunk with Gucci interior upholstery on Ocean Drive than just have South Beach be Jewish nursing homes and Marielitos addicted to crack like it was back in the good old days, even if it means I get handcuffed on the I-395 causeway once in a while. Like as long as Gaby the Jesus freak still teaches yoga on the beach every morning for $5 (and she's a good yoga teacher even if she is working with a bunch of Kabbalah red-string-bracelet-wearing converts and telling them to "channel Jesus" in downward facing dog. She is also rather new to English and will sometimes confuse "elbow" and "belly button" resulting in very amusing and innovative yoga positions)... as long as that's still around, I think things will be okay here.

The plot sickens

As an addendum to the drama on Friday night, apparently Suge Knight got shot in the same V.I.P. room at The Shore Club that we were in the night before. Miami Beach is so ghetto.

Can I get a witness that Sweet Sixteen on MTV is the most fascinating and horrible television event in at least a year or two? Watching these small vessels of lard, ironed hair, and accesories from Claire's sort of makes one wish for a drastic end to civilization, for all the oil on the planet to suddenly dry up, or for a large dinosaur to suddenly emerge from Yellowstone National Park and culminate his national rampage of carnage in a suburb in Palm Beach, his mouth full of party planners, can-can dancers and the new audi homegirl gets for her birthday. Television is so good sometimes.

I went to a party last night that felt very Miami, in a mansion on Hibiscus Island, and a yacht. They had two roast suckling pigs and girls carrying around trays of cigarettes. Not in packages or anything, just piles of cigarettes, on silver platters. It was pretty, with the lights and the palm trees and the views of South Beach, and a little rain that would fall for a minute and then stop.

Miami is for real

The hurricane has come and gone, and unfortunately it didn't sweep away all the MTV people with it. So far this weekend has only confirmed my suspicion that celebrity-dom seems to be a well-organized plot by a cabal of very good looking midgets to get free drinks. They are all so short. Last night I was at a bar that got shut down when "Taboo" from the Black Eyed Peas got in a fight. Someone I was out with got himself peripherally involved, in a drunk inept way, but at least he didn't take off his shirt. Somebody definitely took his shirt off, at which point Jessica Simpson was whisked away by what looked like a body guard detail dressed up as county sheriffs. Anyway, we left.

We were on the Beach but my car was back in Miami, and as we drove back across the causeway we suddenly got pulled over by no less than six cop cars with lights flashing, more cars arriving, it seemed, with every minute. With their guns drawn, speaking into a bullhorn, they made each of us, one by one, exit the car with our hands up, walk backwards away from the car and then kneel in the middle of the highway. Then we were handcuffed, given a pat down (mine by a lady cop in shorts), and put in the back of a squad car.

I happened to be wearing cowboy boots and sat next to a pizza box. The squad car smelled like pizza. The lady cop asked me where I was coming from, I answered "The Shore Club." She said "The Shore Club?" and then asked if anyone had gotten into a fight. I said that yes, somebody with us had gotten in a little argument. She asked where the weapons were. I said, "The weapons?" And from there, I guess, it was determined that no, we weren't the same white SUV whose passengers had apparently shot at some cops earlier that evening. Someone told the cops I worked for the New Times and they were like, "At least you can't say it was racial profiling."

They unhandcuffed us and we went and ate some empanadas at La Carreta. Fortunately nobody was asked to take a breathalyzer test. It was 4:45 in the morning and they closed the highway down to one lane in the process of taking us down. I've never had a gun aimed at me, let alone like ten.

Every time I read something like this I wish Florida was still an uninhabited swamp. It's so sad.

Funny

I just read some Charles Portis and then looked on Friendster and Andrew M. posted how a crackhead stole his phone while he was playing kickball, then the crackhead called TJ and said he would return the phone to him for $20. It made me miss Arkansas. Like a lot.

I think this blog is finally going to die for real. There's so much to say about Miami, but it's finding other, more worthy outlets. This weekend was just barbecues and beach. I met some great people. I learned that Rawkus, in addition to being funded by Murdoch, was started by Brown grads, one of whom I met. I read the first book about South Florida that really seems to nail it: called Up For Grabs, by John Rothchild. I saw Broken Flowers. But the most awesome part was meeting cool people.

"In Florida and EEUU No Obstruction in the Legal Process the Information Respect the Tourist," read the banner that he unfurled around 2 p.m." Funny.