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.