miami
The city that oscillates between garish and genuine Americana.
“A rich and wicked pastel boomtown.”
— Joan Didion on Miami
South Beach is gaudy. Traffic is obnoxious, as is the price of a modest appetizer and the performative revving of engines skidding off the blameless Collins Avenue gravel. The clientele on the beach scales more red state than white glove. No one here takes care to ask you how you are or what you’re here for because everyone arrives for the same thing. If you have weather on water with waves, the reason is secondary to the climate.
Who am I kidding? I’m a sucker for Miami. Foremost it’s a hub for electronic music in all types of spaces at all hours under the sun and moon. From Bayfront Park to Wynwood's alleyways, marketplaces, and warehouses — all the way to the zoo on Jungle Island. My arrival this trip is part capstone and convergence. The final leg of a 10-day spin that ignited in London and churned through Paris, Miami was a late addition to meet my best friend from childhood for a show by the DJ Nora en Pure. Accompanying me from the first half of the trip was my closest friend from the last decade. It’s not always seamless to mesh friends from different eras, but this triad found a comfortable rhythm.
The Lunch
How better to commiserate in Miami than lunch at a corporate steakhouse on the water. This is where I was able to reconnect with my best friend from childhood, during a rare stint without his wife. Every man acts differently when away from their spouse. This isn’t an indictment or a menacing observation; it is simply a truth of human nature. How can you unearth the unguarded vulnerable version of a person when their greatest influence and anchor of their happiness is at their side? Yes it takes a couple of middle-aged men a couple a bottles of Sancerre to open up, but what of it? I feel as if I’d be betraying a bond to air it all here, but we were able to talk about life and partners and the burdens of carrying children and whether we truly want them and taking statins for our elevated cholesterol and whether AI will swipe our jobs, our aging parents and distant brothers living very different lives with wives and those very children we question. We’re working on our drinking, we promise each other as we swirl the final glasses of Sancerre. Only two bottles. Along the banks of the Government Cut channel that connects the Atlantic Ocean to Biscayne Bay, I witness a fish - not a dolphin — get aerodynamic. It’s all quite beautiful actually, and more significantly, meaningful.
And then it begins to rain.
The drops come minutes after my friend leaves, late as always to catch his flight. But this rain is a Miami rain. Scattered and inconsistently, it sprays the waterside tables. Customers flee, egged on by harried waitstaff. With stubborn confidence I sit and gaze at the single monstrous cloud cutting through an otherwise strikingly blue sky. “You’re sitting like a local,” my waitress remarks at my indifferent composure. I take this as a compliment as someone who knows a Miami rain is often mistaken as an annoyance but is actually a refreshing delight when temporary. The skies open up and the punishing sun returns. There are four more hours until it sets, but I must tab out. Lingering would invite another bottle of Sancerre.
The Beach
The following day I spend the afternoon at the beach off 6th Street. The conversation of two nearby men laying out snags my attention. Not necessarily the conversation. I train on the handsome one. The quieter one of course, tightly limbed with a neated trimmed beard. An expressionless face with dark curls hanging over his eyes like an awning, revealing sculpted shoulders when he turns and arches on his flat stomach. Perhaps Persian. I am still getting used to gradually looking older. Each year, new sprouts of gray, the lines deeper around my eyes and into my forehead. Fewer prolonged glances from passersby. The thicker one of the two, less attractive but more assertive, is standing, vaping chirping about his small life. A job in which he claims he’s overpaid. Credit cards which are maxed out. “We should hop on that cruise ship.” “We should get up and see the sunrise.” “We should go talk to these girls bro.” “Next year we’ll be out on a boat bro.” Utterances made thousands of times on this very sand but never acted on. Condescension comes easier among your own. But that’s what Miami brings, the tease that something bigger exists in the world when in reality comes with the airline notification that your Sunday flight back to Cleveland is only delayed, not reprieved. And there’s the irrefutable fact I am spending quite an embarrassingly amount of time ogling this Persian. My gawking a reminder that age does not suppress desire. He has no interest in me as he stares ahead towards the shoreline and merely smiles as his friend tirelessly babbles on. And then my ex flashes into my frame of mind. The image of us soaking in the ocean together during a trip on this very beach last summer, his lush hair, deep set eyes, brooding stare, and the security, however paper thin it was, came with this 25 year old. Snap out of it. I bake in the waning sun, knowing how bad it is for my aging skin but stubborn in the belief I won’t feel like I’ve truly done Miami unless I see the color caking over my veins.
The Show
An Anjunadeep show is a hyper-paced symphony. For much of it, the crowd doesn’t so much as dance but sway, surrendering to the unhurried subtle melodies, but not completely losing control of their bodies. It’s the kind of electronic music that prioritizes feeling over frenzy. It’s open air - this venue is tucked inside a Wynwood marketplace - so the sound can permeate the warm open sky, rather than get trapped inside the walls of a club. For my own purposes and for many of my fellow Anjuaheads, psilocybin is a preferred enhancement, providing the lift needed to endure a marathon setlist that runs seven hours. Unfortunately the vape shops in Miami have tricked me, selling me a PolkaDot chocolate bar. The bar I’ve purchased for $55 is a blend of Lion’s Mane, Reishi, Turkey Tail and Codyceps - which Claude informs me are mushrooms for clarity, focus and energy not a psychedelic trip. Another friend accompanying us on our Anjuna finale has a few gummies on hand to share, but I’m at the point where I need a healthier handful to power me through back-to-back sets, an amount I’m too embarrassed to request in this circumstance. The allotted mushroom gummies — three in total — carry me nicely through Luttrell, Cri and Ben Bohmer. But by Eli and Fur - my favorite set of the night for their deep, hypnotic sound that sits somewhere between melodic techno and atmospheric house - my feet begin to weaken, weary and wounded from a 10-day trip that averaged 20,000 paces per 24 hours. My closest friend from this chapter of my life on the other hand (my childhood friend has fled back to his wife) is bursting with energy - energy I cannot match and therefore must segregate myself from. It is no one’s fault that our vibrancy did not align on this final night. I am grateful he had such a splendid time and envious that I wasn’t able to match it. As we seek one final post-show drink in Miami, our female friend who lives in Coral Gables observes that Wynwood has gone kitschy. Full Tulum. We saunter into The White Elephant Cocktail Bar. It’s exactly what we aren’t looking for. It’s deafening to the point where a conversation is impossible. The point here is to keep the party going. The bartenders are stone-faced, but capable of pouring three gin and tonics as a pair of DJs rip house music into the 2 am hour. A person notifies me that my money clip has fallen out of my pocket and onto the floor. It’s a small act of grace from a stranger, but one I take as a cue to order by Lyft back to the hotel.
