PAARRR--TTAY!!!!
Here is where Beachbum planned on a clucking, finger-wagging, beard-stroking lecture on the over-hype and excesses of this Whole Event, especially given the poverty in the world and global warming--but honk that for a weekend, and let's have some fun! You have TV's and local newspapers and they can tell you about the big-name celebrity get-togethers and high rollers getting massaged by extinct dodo birds while Madonna screams at them in the little bit of Rwandan she's picked up from her latest adopted kid....Beachbum and our friends at hotelsbycity are here to help you find the unknown or underappreciated wonders of the Magic City; not to re-interpret what your own eyes and brains can already see.
The party is on, and only schlumpfs can't put aside their quibbles with daily life to relax and "get away," if only mentally. Like Christopher Isherwood, let me "be a camera" and swoop you around town for a few snapshots...
To the south, media types and swells gather at the incredible Vizcaya for some black-tie event....a little way from there Coconut Grove is hopping, obviously around the center two shopping arcades....from there, still "inland," is Bayfront Park, where the youngsters are setting up for various hip hop bands all weekend long. The AAA hosts the Heat tonight, and Bongo's, the Estefan's Cuban-theme restaurant, as well as Bayside, will be fun all weekend long too....north north north we fly, like Peter Pan and the Lost Boys...
There's the MASSIVE ESPN fiesta in the Design District on the west end of 195 (the Julia Tuttle), a street party that's invite-only, but you can bet crashers will be on the fringes.....up I-95 we go now, to NFL Interactive at Dolphin Stadium, and onward to the more sinful sites of Gulfstream Race Track, Hard Rock Casino, strip clubs like Pure Platinum and the Cheetah. There's downtown La-de-da, with sofas set up along SE2nd St for game-watching, and Las Olas, and the New River, which will be percolating with boat traffic.
Take a deep breath, as we fly out east over the Atlantic, towards the Bahamas a scant 75 miles by air, as we make a dramatic swing back towards a long thin outcrop of rocks, mangroves, and sand dunes that we lovingly call Miami Beach. Picture the fantastic opening scene of The Birdcage, an onrushing aerial shot coming in to a low stretch of neon that sharply defines into the Ocean Drive strip of Art Deco palaces that serve as both room and board to our guests. There's the outdoor stages on the beach where Jay Z will play, there's Casa Casuarina where Versace got shot, rented out to a local sports radio station for the weekend. There's the mega-clubs at Cameo and Mansion and Nikki Beach. See those people walking down the closed-off Ocean Drive, cocktails in hand? See them swarming the clubs between 6th and 8th on Washington, see them eating and perambulating on Lincoln Road. The music is thumping, the money is changing hands, the cameras are rolling, and everyone is having a great time. And to join in, all you have to do is simply insert yourself. Any place you fit, grab a seat, order a burger, talk to the person next to you, and remember next Monday another work week will begin. But it ain't Monday yet, is it?
