Miami: South Beach

Am I Crockett or Am I Tubbs?

With the bag of lamb safely tucked away and the top rolled down on my Chrysler Sebring Convertible, I'm flying down I-395 and Route 41 into Miami Beach. It's a lovely and cool night here but I'm warm in my optimism, plus I've got the heater cranked to Full Blast.

I don't get to Miami very often and haven't been here since the early 1990s. In fact, I don't have too good an impression of Miami with it's status-conscious denizens and ostentatious pretentiousness. It's just not a place that has appealed to me. Ever. I'd much rather be in Honolulu than Miami.

But I'm game and open to see what the city has to offer. So far, the food has been good but now I'm driving into the Belly of the Beast to see what's what on a Monday night.

Exceeding the national speedlimit on the MacArthur Causeway, I realize that I saw Mike Lowrey and Marcus Burnett causing carnage and mayhem here in Bad Boys II.


I hope I'm not Agador.

Since it was nearly 10pm and a Monday night, I didn't get the full experience of Miami Beach. No bikini clad girls roller skating down Ocean Drive, no Lamborghinis blasting Arabic music and no nightclub called The Birdcage. What I did find was a large hip-hop party in celebration of some famous hip-hop DJ on Washington Avenue. There I found lots of the requisite SUVs, Chrysler 300s and more vehicles with very large chrome wheel, lots of bling and lots of cops.

Seems that no matter where you go in the world, crowds of black people scare white people.

Not really interested in the club scene, I found an open cigar shop and bought myself a stogie. Maybe I could look like The Pimp with my cigar and rental sebring convertible...

Or not.

Instead, I took a walk along the beach, chatted with a few girls and then took a tour of the retail architecture and design of the area. From there, it was another hair-raising ride at triple digit speeds along the highway back to my airport hotel.