Dear Miami, I'm Breaking up with You

"Dear Miami, this is tough for me but...I uh, gotta break up with you. Now-now wait a minute...don't get upset. It's not you, it's me....well...really, it's mostly you."

!KA-POW! - to the back of my head and a quick !BITCH-SLAP! to my right cheek.

"I'm sorry, I don't hate you or anything I just can't live with you anymore." 

One more !SLAP! to my other cheek.

"Okay let me explain..."

After living my entire life as a proud Miamian, I have grown to realize how things have obviously changed in this young-girl of a city. Rampant development, a lot of it positive and much needed improvements to what was always just a seasonal destination. Locals in the service industry used to have to wait for "season" to make any real money because the rest of the year it was pretty much dead and summer being the worst time of the year, it would become a veritable ghost town. Season would usually descend upon our playground city as soon as it would cool down and the snowbirds landed, sometime after Halloween and run until about April. Now, "season" has pretty much spread to most of the other parts of the year even the traditional summer drop in business is no longer noticeable.

I refuse to join the ranks of the mass of "Miami-haters" scattered around the globe and that bad-talk Miami for so many reasons but as a Miamian, I have slowly realized that something has changed with our magic city in the process of her being a big girl. I wil always be grateful to Miami. She has nurtured me in her bodacious bosom and I've had too many remarkably fun and hedonistic moments that my brain can remember. She has opened my mind with her eccentricities, feeding my addiction to her nightlife. 

When you compare 100 year old (about) Miami with other cities that have centuries more years under their belts, she doesn't compare with the diversity, depth and sophistication of the grande dame cities like San Francisco, New York and Chicago. They hold the allure and inspire as say, a Marilyn Monroe or Brigitte Bardot kind of lady.

Miami is like the girl that just turned 18 and just learned how to wear makeup and walk in heels, showing off her hot new body. The minute she gets into the club with her fake ID, she has a magnetism about her that grabs everyone's attention. All the guys want to sleep with her but that's as far as it goes. That is all she has to offer, for the moment, after all she is only 18.

After years of hearing, "That's so Miami" and wondering what these people really meant, I eventually discovered it wasn't a compliment. The top criticisms of Miami I have collected over the last couple of years (from locals and non-locals) have been: 

"Well, you know Miami people are not that educated and things go slower there." 

"People in Miami don't know how to carry conversation. They only keep it on the surface." 

"If you aren't attractive, you are ignored." 

"That place is super fake and the people are flaky."

"Welcome to Miami, a sunny place with shady people."

"People in Miami are too pretentious for no reason."

"When people from Miami come in to our restaurant in New York, we always seat them in the back because they are loud and obnoxious."

Yeah I know, it hurts to hear it. All this time I thought I was pretty cool to be in such a down to earth city where the world comes to party and the people really tell it like it is. The overly expressive latin mentality gives us permission to be brutally honest, so much so that there a lot of people who are just, well Dicks. 

But aside from that, when you compare Miami to all the other cities, it is the most colorful, esthetically appealing, fun and has the best weather this side of Los Angeles. Yeah, all those things count and that puts her at the top for destination cities, gaining her ranking alongside New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The problem is not with our city, mother nature made her just right. It is a virtual paradise almost every day of the year, it's a very comfortable life. You can survive with less here than other big cities. The problem is with her "people". 

Miami has evolved into a type of new Havana where the locals with their wits about them and ability to leave, all emigrate out as soon as they can. Why do they leave? They are looking for more affordable housing, better paying jobs, a more progressive, calm lifestyle that isn't as "crazy" or stressful and after your 30's if you aren't partnered up, it can get boring. 

The ones that migrate to Miami are looking for exactly that. They want color, craziness. They want to sow their oats, and sip on the sexy, spicy, latino gazpacho under a beach umbrella with a hot ocean breeze caressing their faces. 

The problem is when a city caters to that type of tourism or residents, it changes the dynamic of the city and the locals are left feeling like the city has turned into a place not of their making. Miami is a city that never slows down and is addicted to hedonism 12 months out of the year. There never seems to be a time to slow down and reflect. Miami doesn't afford time to it's residents for respite. There is always a festival or event to rush to get ready for. 

While i'm not absolutely sure when the disconnect that exists today first occurred or what changed the air here but I do have a theory. It happened some time between the release of Will Smith's cheesy "Welcome to Miami" video and when someone dropped a hot, steamy dump inside the fitting room of the Kardashian's Dash store on their equally shitty show; The Kardashians Take Miami. It was those two events that sealed our fate and when the subterranean, asshole magnet was turned on. 

From that point on, the "asswhole invasion" began. Douchebags from around the world started to come in droves driving their douchey sport cars, yachts and private jets and with their trophy wives or mistresses in tow.

Developers started building overpriced, high-rise condos that no local salary could afford and baptizing them with egomaniacal names like; Quantum, Icon or Epic that could easily double as names for a condom brand. 

As a result of this "asshole invasion" the people that weren't assholes ended up acting like them so they wouldn't feel left out of this apparent, new normal. This is what I like to call "AAD" or Asshole Affective Disorder. As a result, of the mass AAD epidemic with South Beach at it's epicenter, the rest of Miami has seen it's good people turn into zombies walking around as if they were on a never ending fashion show catwalk with their blue-steel gazes and nonchalant, poker faces acting as if their milk shake is better than anyone else's. 

If you attempt to break rank and connect eyes or dare to greet one of these zombies with what is normal in other cities, with a simple "Hi", you will be guaranteed a quick roll of the eyes or a turn away as if you were a paparazzi trying to take their picture. 

I know it sounds like an exaggeration but the next time you are in Miami, give it a try. 

Is Miami really the coolest place to live as it's sold to be? The only way to answer is to go to other cities and really look at how people treat each other and what the vibe of a place is. 

After feeling like my home was no longer home, and no longer blaming myself for the alienation I was feeling, I decided to believe the old adage; when things no longer go right, it's time to go left. I made the painful decision to break with my hometown to shift gears, exchanging the partying life of molly for an earthy-crunchy, granola, zen existence on the "other coast" in the more gracefully matured city of San Francisco. 

After all, it is in my genes to migrate to find a better place. My parents emigrated to Miami escaping Cuban communism to get a piece of the American pie. I am blessed with a less painful option to emigrate and try another city inside this diverse and still beautiful country. We enjoy the freedom to explore other cities, to burst out of one bubble and plug into another. Sometimes home isn't where you are born but where best suits you at any given time.

"Now Miami, I ain't hating, i'm just telling you, if you're gonna play with the big boys, you're gonna have to be able to take some constructive criticism to be a real, big city one day. Don't hate me for this but it's adios for now, I hope you'll miss me when i'm gone. 

I'll probably fall back in love with you and chase you down one day, after you get over this weird, growing phase thing. For now, I am fulfilled with the eyes of kinder, warmer strangers greeting me with good mornings and hello's. Instead of an eternal tan, I enjoy basking in a softer sun and the crispy-cool pacific breeze of "fog city". 

My only hope is that in your rush to get noticed and become a big girl, you don't forget what makes a city great is not only it's great clubs, buildings or infrastructure but it's charm, sense of peace and humanity. 

Without that, you'll just keep attracting the wrong kind of people into your life."

*Tips on how to avoid and clear infection from Miami's AAD.

*A recent New Times profile of Miami's socially conscious change makers. They are the finest examples of the resistance to the invasion. It's people like these that just might save her.

Tasting Another Slice of the Miami Orange

http://www.tatisuarez.com/

http://fumeroism.com/

I stumble upon a cool group of cyclists while buying some freshly smoked "street meat" in Wynwood during this year's Art Basel in front of the new Panther Coffee shop on NW 2nd Avenue. They chat me up and offer a bike tour of the Wynwood outdoor art murals. I say "hell yeah" and sign up for tomorrow's ride.

Wynwood is in a world of it's own, this year's Art Basel reinforced the assertion that this is definitely NOT South Beach. It is on the edge, literally. It lies sandwiched between the posh Design District and hipster-central, Midtown Miami neighborhoods but is totally another raw, unrefined flavor to Miami's spicy melting pot. It was once a fashion and industrial district with a large Puerto Rican population but is now fast becoming the next place to find inspiration and respite from conformism.

The bike tour guides from Emerge Miami offered me a chance to learn more about the artists that created the murals littered all over the area. I thought this would be the perfect way to see another layer to this whole Art Basel phenomenon that few get to learn about. I've snapped shots at these murals for months now while driving through my neighborhood of Midtown and have been noticing a recent explosion of fresh and innovative artwork, transforming this blighted neighborhood in the middle of nowhere.

This nowhere has become somewhere overnight thanks to it's visionary artists and developers like David Lombardi of Wynwood lofts, Cafeina, Panther Coffee house and of course the man with the Midas touch, Tony Goldman, proprietor of Joey's Cafe' and the sexy, new Wynwood Kitchen. I remember Tony when he first laid eyes on South Beach back in 1988 and I had just rented a studio apartment in his building on 8th and Ocean drive overlooking the beach for only $350-. Tony was finishing his first remodel of an art deco hotel on South Beach. It was the Park Central and it stood out like a diamond surrounded by charcoal. It was one of the first hotels to be painted with the colorful pastel palette. In those days, the buildings were all depressing, earthy browns and beiges with all of the art deco lines lost from lack of maintenance and color to highlight their beauty. His friend he brought down from New York to manage my the apartment building where I lived was Mark Soyka who was planning to manage a little cafe' named News Cafe'. The rest, as you know is history and Tony's vision was the seed that germinated into the hedonistic, global mecca that is South Beach today.

Flash forward to 2010, Tony's golden fingers are spreading their fairy dust over Wynwood and it is a wonderful transformation to see a nuclear holocaust, concrete jungle burst into colors and bloom galleries on every corner. He commissioned top name artists for the Wynwood Walls project. Kenny Scharf, Shepard Fairy who did the Obama campaign poster and Jeff Soto to name a few, all came together to transform bare concrete walls into individual dimensional doorways into each of their minds. A virtual Alice in Wonderland for art lovers. This project has inspired other wall commissions all over Wynwood from companies like Levi's, Primary Flight, and Sharpie and the list keeps growing. Wynwood's murals are currently one of the largest mural installations in the world featuring over 250 artists from around the globe. Primary flight is the main promoter of "legal street art" in Miami and has helped to bring other corporate sponsors.



I awake to another perfectly blue, crystal clear winter day in Miami and I gear up on my beach cruiser with my 10 year old nephew and ride over to Cafeina to meet the bikers for our tour. My nephew is amp'ed to see all the artists on scissor lifts painting murals live in Cafeina lounge's side parking lot. It was like walking into an open air museum, the way art should be enjoyed in the fresh air, spotlighted by the sun.



We see so many bad ass works of art that I piss off my biker brothers for falling too far behind to take pictures. We turn the corner into what looks like an abandoned warehouse complex that is a shell of a building littered with hundreds of graffitti artists and their girlfriends and baby future graffitti artists. There were guys hanging from steel roof beams on ladders painting over every square inch of bare concrete. It was a massive beehive with each worker bee, working their magic in a peaceful synchronicity. No gang violence or cops here just pure street art. A lot of the business owners are more than happy to have their walls painted so the stigma of illegal tagging of walls isn't an issue here.

Our tour guide goes on to explain a lot of the art and tells us of my favorite artist Retna who uses his own form of hieroglyphics in his murals which only he can decipher. Another story tells of a legendary pioneering graffitti artist named Ynot that passed away but is not forgotten. Artists in the area tag walls with his logo all over Wynwood to keep his memory alive.



The sad but poetic truth is that these murals are just as mortal as the humans that paint them. They will either be painted over quickly or be destroyed by the elements over time. Like a sand castle competition, the only way to capture this fleeting beauty is to take a picture before it's gone. One of the murals I photographed was already painted over by a buzzkill landlord 2 days later.



All in all, this was one of the most refreshing and inspirational things I did during this culture bomb they call Art Basel this year and hope I get to do it again in 2011. It adds to the list of the "wonderful things" that make My-Ami, the real Miami; home for me. Let's just hope and pray that neither Pottery Barn nor Romero Britto set their sights on Wynwood and it remains the edgy and inspirational place it is today.

Learn more about the Miami graffitti movement here.

*Hot Miami tip- Check out La Guarderia produce market on 34th street and NW 2nd avenue and grab oodles of fresh produce and fruit for a fraction of what it would cost at your local Publix. It's totally worth the trek.

A great short film on the origins of Miami's Art Basel and it's arts community, highlighting some of it's most prominent pioneers and shapers of our magic city, recently premiered at Wynwood's only independent film house, O Cinema.

Space-Face

As Lady Gaga so sexily sings, "Can you read my, read my Poker face?". Well, in Miami's Club Space and every other club in Miami, you can find "poker face's" everywhere you look. Club Space is an institution that proudly hosts thousands of visitors locally and from around the world. The only club that has survived fads, FBI raids, jealous club owners' sabotage and finicky Miami partier's ever changing and demanding tastes for the best music and the best time. It is the crown jewel of Miami's reign as the dance and music capital of the world.

This blog is about what I like to call "Space-Face". The pictures that capture the intoxicated and blissfully high faces of pleasure. These pic's usually portray people giving peace signs, pursing their lips, squinting their eyes, being affectionate, exposing breasts, flirtatious behavior and above all, enjoying themselves.

What the 10 megapixel digital cameras don't show is the pain behind the eyes; the guy that just got fired from his job, the girl that has to work 3 jobs to send enough money to her country so her family can survive, or the gay guy partying to forget how unjust it is that Proposition 2 just passed in Florida just when he thought that hate would no longer affect him. http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Florida_Marriage_Amendment_(2008) When you're at Space or any other night club in Miami, it isn't the time to think or dwell on the struggles of life on Earth. It's time to celebrate being alive and healthy enough to get up and dance our asses off. When the cameras are aimed at us, we give our Miami version of a "Poker Face" our "Space-Face". The face that shows that all is well with the world at this moment in time, that we are rock stars and that we are sexy damnit!

This is Miami! We live here to live life to the fullest however hedonistic it may be. Call us superficial, unrealistic, unintelligent, we don't care because we are alive, right here, right now and this is the reality we have created for ourselves. For a moment in time, we are free and exempt from the rat-race.

"This is Miami" playing on Space's Patio at a Sunday morning party.