Barbi Does Miami

mostly from my oxymoronic years between Miami and Milford

Author Archives: barbidoesmiami


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The BlackBerry Diet

The epilog of the BlackBerry Diet reads like this:

(oh, and it might sound familiar)…

– 100 –

I’m writing this from my twenty-fifth floor apartment in Miami.

Below me is the beach scattered with tiny figures and the endless ocean dotted with cruise-liners and container ships stretches ahead of me.

I’m surrounded by white, turquoise, and deep blue.

I’m definitely not in the Catskills anymore.

The kids are in school.

We moved a month ago.

News from Upstate is that snow came early this year, before the leaves had even fallen. It’s sunny here and in the mid-eighties.

I’m not homesick.

We rented the farm to friends, a gay couple who hope we’ll never return. But it’s too soon to tell. I try not to think too far ahead. I’m being here now, in the moment.

Finn has changed.

Almost losing me made him grow up, like he could finally celebrated his family.

Soon after I came back from Paris he sheepishly told me that he’d been invited to go on another PR junket.

Oh sure, I said.

They’re opening a new restaurant at the Fontainebleau in Miami.

Cool, I said, this time I’m coming along.

The girls stayed with Emma.

It was easy and to my surprise I loved Miami.

After going to Paris I’d fought not to slip back into my old habits. It was so hard. My life worked in a set way, and I didn’t know how to change it. I tried too hard to please Finn and then I was resentful. I could go from being loving and sweet to a screaming maniac in a nano-second. Finn stood by. Guilty like he deserved my wrath. I hated myself. I considered a separation after all. We talked about it, but Finn refused.

How about we take a year away from our old life, he said one day. And try a fresh start.

Going to Miami was a risk worth taking.

I do miss Emma and Manon.

Emma is on a book tour. Her book is selling well and it’s being turned into an off-Broadway play. Manon moved back to the city. The country was too lonely for a stunning Amazon like her. She loves New York and is dating a Dutch pediatrician.

I adore Miami women. Like my new friend Rio who dresses up for everything like taking the kids to school, shopping for groceries, sitting on the beach, walking the dog, or going out for dinner. I copy her. I no longer wear sweats and my roots never show. The only pills I take are vitamin pills, I swim every day and I’m even contemplating going to the gym.

I’ve started designing a new collection.

Finn and I are partying.

I go with him to every restaurant review and last Saturday we went to a crazy gender-bender Halloween ball.

We danced till two in the morning.

We have the best sex.

He thinks I’m hot.

He says he fell in love with me all over again.

I love him back.

Carefully.

I’m still exploring the place where he begins and I end.

He ends and I begin.

****

Doing my Barbi does Miami blog has been  a lot like writing the BlackBerry Diet, its about real life but also about knowing what to play up and what to play down, about being genuine, irreverent and open. I had to be honest, completely honest with myself when I wrote the the BlackBerry Diet. I crafted a narrative using my own life, adding highs, lows and tension. To be able to do this I created another persona called Katja, a husband called Finn, three daughters, and a parallel universe that expressed mine…

Now, after writing this blog for nine months I might be ready to serialize and  incorporate the BlackBerry Diet into this blog.

Whatya think?



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Barbi’s least pleasant Miami moments

big house

OK, So.
Even when one escapes to the beach. To the sun. To the palm tree lined avenues with houses so enormous, so fancy, and so beyond this lifetime’s means, shit happens.

Shit happens.

Shit happens no matter where you are. Even when you are living your dream, shit happens. Like  that dream where you ‘re having sex with the perfect hunk and you just cant find IT.. I’m digressing, but (ever had that dream?)  even in your best dreams shit happens. Thats my point.

So in our “live our dream” year in Miami, shit happened. Like as soon as we arrived Kiki and Leila were diagnosed with TB. One test-scratch, and whoops is that a positive? Then their teacher said, to their face, “I don’t want them in my class”, that was #1 of serious shit happening to my twins days within our arrival. So. A beach and the sun and 78 degrees in February and a few palm trees, well, they don’t make that much difference to the shit that goes down.

I also find that, when you put yourself out there its like asking for shit to come flying in your face.

Like I wrote a book.

Stupid, silly, sensitive me. Only tough fuckers should write books. Like Steven Segal, or Judith Regan, or Cheney, they can write books and not give a fuck about rejection letters. But me? Barbi? The one who was an ice cream vendor at her sixth birthday party and cried because she never actually got a cone herself. That Barbi should’ve never put a novel out there. If it wasn’t for the beach, and her lovely daughters, her friends, her comments on her blog (!), her stabilizing Dutch background, well if it wasn’t for all that, those letters would have brought her down. And they weren’t all that bad. Most of them liked the story, the edge in her voice, they just didn’t know how the fuck to market her in today’s climate. Like she wasn’t Sarah Palin or one of Tiger’s/Jesse’s mistresses.Her story wasn’t “feel good, warm and fuzzy” the sales trend in todays depressed economy.

OH.

Well then, never mind.

Those rejection letters,  they are #2 on my list of least pleasant moments, these last nine months. Not Miami’s fault. In fact life here, the parties, the friends, the sun, the happy husband, probably made the whole process less upsetting… but there you go. Advice: dont write a book. Don’t ever write a book. Promise me, write a blog instead and fuckem.

Now I sit back and ask myself. What else was least pleasant?

Well, I didn’t tell you. But I spent 36 hours inside Mount Sinai hospital. That was not pleasant. It was self induced mixed with some stress. Remember that blog where I thought I was going a little crazy? When I wondered what the fuck we were doing here? I had palpitations so I took my blood pressure at CVS, Through the roof! So high, like I was almost dead, the machine said. I Googled high blood pressure and bought every natural drug recommended. Magnesium and beta blockers. Ginger tea, made from real ginger.  Two, three, four days went by and each night was worse, palpitations, light headed, and even a panic attack. I almost passed out. I took the kids to school and drove myself straight into the emergency room.

Well, as soon as one utters the word “heart” in the ER they keep you. They take you and hook you up, and do every test known to doctor-kind. BTW Mount Sinai is a teaching hospital so along with each doctor come five interns who gape like they’ve never seen an attractive woman under 70 (60, 50) in a hospital bed before…

Make a long dumb story short: I did not have high blood pressure. CVS machine was wrong. I had  l o w  blood pressure, and my self-medicating had put my poor  heart into a catatonic state, like fifty confused beats per minute and no pressure.

That was #3 on my least pleasant Miami moments.

#4. Lemme think. Its true that one remembers the good stuff and forgets the bad. Hm. Art Basel? When, in the craze of having to be everywhere at once, I helped write some of  husband’s blogs? And his editor gave me a credit and then the legal guys took it off ? That sucked. That made me mad. That caused a fight.

#5. When it was cold, this one is for Maria, and the iguanas died, dropping narcoleptically like pre-historic rubber toys from the trees, belly up. That Miami cold spell was not pleasant. And I wore the same woolly cardigan for three weeks.

belly up iguana

#6. When my Mom left. My Mom is 82 and fabulous. And fit and she will live to be a 100. But whenever she leaves I ask myself: is this the last time? And that really sucks.

#7. As referenced in best Miami moments. I got my little studio. I got it twice! The first time I got it, I had not signed a lease, in our pre-commitment days, but I  did pack the car with all my stuff. My drill, my beach-plastic in its color coordinated bags, my fabric, my fold-up table, my stool, my tool chest and then I got an e-mail saying,” sorry, someone was willing to sign a lease”. In todays climate, of course, “take the lease, good for you, make some money, I understand”.  I unpacked my stuff back into my Aqua garage. Three months later I got a similar studio, a better one, prettier, I moved in, I had a desk, but still needed my stuff… I packed it up, well … once again I was bounced about. I waited to be let in for hours, I waited for my key, I was stood up, I was told to come back again and again. And I said fuckit! This makes me feel like shit… so I walked away, gave them the finger in one of those moments when I thought that maybe the pretty little studio was just not meant to be…. for me…

#8 Well, an rich blue-rinse lady stole my parking spot at the Aventura Mall! It was Iona’s worst moment. She was a witness to what ensued. This lady, like really blatantly stole it (I’d been sitting waiting politely) just because she could (better insurance?). But that was not the worst of it. The unpleasant moment came when I almost beat her up. When I realized that I could, if pushed just a tiny bit further, have kicked her Bentley, smashed her window, pulled her wig off her bitchy old head – just like my mom who once kicked a dent in a car in a similar situation. I dont like to run into myself, my worst self, in that way.

#9. When it became hot here, like never less than 85, and the pool heated up, and after swimming 20 laps every day all year, I realized that I’d become allergic to the chlorine, or something else in the pool, and I got  a rash al over my chest, my face, my arms, which lasted for two itchy weeks. Now I have to go to the gym, and I HATE the gym.

#10. Saying goodbye to Alastair and Kiki and Leila, and realizing that our experiment was over, and worrying about them driving so far, and worrying about our house and our renters and knowing that next year, when we come back, its no longer what it was. No longer a fuck you to what’s expected, but that in the second year we will settle and Miami will become our life, our normal life, and we’ll have to look for different, new ways to escape…

living the dream


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Miami Beach Round Up, ten best …

Remember? getting ready to leave Milford September 2009...

Nine months since I packed the car in Milford and headed south with three kids, six bags, and loads of movies. Nine months since we did what we wanted, in a fuck the consequences kinda way, like – get outta town – hop on the bus gus – life is a beach – fuckem if they cant take a joke – the experience will do us good – life is too short  – broaden the horizon – migrate like a nomad – follow the sun and live your dream…

So what was it like? Living the dream on the beach? It was just like life. But sunnier.  It so wasn’t Milford. It was so Miami Beach. But it was life nevertheless. Husband and I still had fights. So did the twins. We still had homework and laundry and rashes and crushes. I still got rejection letters and I still cared when they came. Only it was 78 degrees in February. Only some days we said lets have lunch on the beach, and I made sandwiches and we hopped on our bikes and ten minutes later lay in the sand, stood in the surf, without guilt, on a Tuesday afternoon.

When I look back there were some memorable moments, quite a few actually, like I have a top ten of my high and low moments of nine months at the beach:

Best Parties:

1. October>The Halloween cross dressing party for grown ups, after candy rounds with the kids, going back home and dressing up with husband, have a scotch in the bathroom while he tried to get into a bra and pantyhose, making myself up like a man, and leaving the house around 11 instead of coming home at 11. Coming home at 3 am. Drunk and stoned. Not done that in a while great start to our Miami Beach party season…

2. Which concluded with a party on Biscayne Point a few weeks ago when husband wore his pajama striped pale linen pants and I wore new white silk pants, and  our host dropped his glass of red wine at our feet, splashing it mostly over husband ‘s pants and within ten minutes of our arrival I’m sitting with my feet in the pool, for once wishing for high chlorine levels to help remove the wine stains, and look through the gauze curtains to my left only to see husband in his white y-fronts standing by an elaborate four poster bed while host holds up pant after pant, as if they’re at Prada together. Me thinks, well, thats the fastest A has ever gotten out of his pants at a party and how gay is that host? Not at all it turned out, he had buxom brunette twins in matching shorts and fishnet stockings launching around, bored and clearly waiting for the party to be over. One well-groomed older lady referred to them as “the hired help”. Still, it turned into one of the best parties when Tray Lockerbie, a young singer from Nashville stepped out with his guitar, sang a few songs and inspired three more musicians to come out, including husband. They jammed, we sang. We danced. Got home late, husband in different pants from the ones he left home in – a sign of a good time had…

Miami icons: Sam, Esther, Iran

3. Our  dinner parties at our Aqua Candyland Bachelor Pad like the one  in honor of Eyjafjallajökull and Zaha Hadid who could not make it home to London because of the ash… four fabulous Miami Matriarchs: Sam, Iran, Kathy and Esther, dishing and gossiping and one-upping with stories of their wildest Miami moments…

Zaha and Barbi in the Tiesto candy-land elevator

4. The twins birthday party by the pool, voted best party by them, in 90 degree weather, ten ten-year old girls and two boys (pretending they were at their own separate party) going wild. Iona came to the rescue, miraculously, like a pied piper, rounded them up and bossed them around into orderly games that included hula hoops, diving for prizes and water guns. All a sweaty, hamburger-scented blur to me.

twin birthday

5.  Top best moment beyond, over and above parties: Finding out that Iona got into DASH. A top-ten-ever-proud-mother-moment.

6. The “gifted” test of the twins. A controversial public school moment, where I bought into the system that separates the so-called gifted kids from the rest, and puts them in classes that are superior in method and level of teacher. Hm. Ok, some another time shall I rant about this. Anyway. To get there from here, my girls needed to get an IQ test of sorts. Now. You have to know that over the years opinions by various teachers on their intelligence and the ability to apply themselves have varied. I never wavered, but was often worn down by  negative reports that included notes like “unable to concentrate”, “reading impaired”,  “incomplete homework”.  So this test was a test. A test about who was right. Was my conviction just motherly love? Like Kiki said, “of course you think we’re smart, you’re our Mom!” She thought the teachers were the only authority, and when “gifted” teacher, Mr Spagnola, told their class that they were “the worst class in the school” the last nail had been nailed into their “see Mom, we’re stupid” coffin.

NOT SO.

my smart twins

They tested brilliantly. Smart, ahead of their age, eloquent, sensitive and insightful. A weight of self-doubt fell off my shoulders, the veil of insecurity was lifted from their aura. Just one silly test was all it took. I know its all relative, the Wizard of Oz is right about certificates, but, but, it was a good Miami moment.

7. The day I moved into my small sunny studio at Ofer Mizrahi’s utopian village alongside the tracks on 4th North Court. I’d had my eye on the small,  like 250 sq.ft, studio for months –  a palm-tree just outside the french doors, surrounded by young painters, designers environmentalists and architects. A place of my own to escape to… for more look under # 7 in my Worst Miami Moments…

8. My Mom’s visit. Showing her all my favorite things and seeing her health improve in the sun, surrounded by  granddaughters and love.

love

9. Getting my scarves into Base at the Delano Hotel, making clothes again, finding local women who can sew and bead and enjoy making my stuff while getting paid, and realizing that I can start my business here and help clean the beaches from plastic pollution and maybe make a difference in the environmental consciousness of Miami. All of which is recorded here:   http://itsamanmadeworld.wordpress.com/

blue beach plastic silk scarf

10. Marriage. We have been together 20 years this Labor Day. Twenty years is longer than I lived in Amsterdam by two years. Its ten years longer than my life in London. In twenty years everything happens. E V E R Y T H I N G. Jobs come and go. Money comes and goes. Parents die, kids are born. Friends die, friends are born. Dreams die, dreams are born. Together we lived in Tribeca and on 9th Street, we lived in an old terracotta factory on the Raritan Canal just outside Princeton which flooded during hurricane Floyd and a week later I was pregnant with twins. We moved to Milford, we built our dream house, we moved to Miami.

Alastair Gordon at Tiesto @ the Fontainebleau

Love. I learned that love changes. That love isn’t static but more like a pink lava lamp. Sometimes we are completely one, sometimes we are at odds, but we always come back together with more love, more intensity and more understanding.

Miami was his idea. We needed it, he said. We needed sun as in light, and parties.  He challenged us and some days this made me mad. Some days I did not want to be Barbi in Miami, I wanted to just be Barbara again. But now, a year later, he has left for Milford and I miss him. And I love him more for making us do this, and for taking me into our marriage deeper than ever before…

Alastair, Kiki and Leila leaving Miami Beach, back to Milford....

Iona and I are here for two more weeks, while she does her DASH summer camp and I enter ten more memorable Miami moments, coming soon….


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when I worked with Helmut Newton …

One day Helmut Newton booked me for a swimming-pool shoot. I was thrilled at the prospect of working with him. All the top models had worked with Helmut at least once. He liked tall, domineering, angry, sexy Amazons. I could do S&M, I could be his kind of girl. He was working on a famous series of models in swimming pools, contrasting the cool blue water with the black of their sunglasses and bathing suits, the red of their nails and lips, their ebony hair, long tan legs and backs, curved sexy bottoms and breasts.

Mine was an ad for Smirnoff Vodka.

The turquoise pool, my long naked back next to a martini glass.

It seemed simple enough.

Helmut arrived at Ringo Starr’s estate in a black stretch limo, took one look at Ringo’s pool, another look at the sky and declared both inadequate. He needed bright sunshine, a rare event in North London, and the pool was too shabby.

He ignored me like I was some assistant and disappeared back into his limo. The shoot was cancelled. I was paid five hundred pounds for showing up, and a week later ten of us, hair, make-up, stylist, ad-people, assistants, flew to an infinity pool carved into the Portofino mountainside.

Throughout our first dinner Helmut entertained us with witty but brutal anecdotes, like when he had a fireman’s hose pointed between the model’s legs and the jet of ice-cold water accidentally hit her in the crotch causing her to scream in pain. Helmut told the story as if this blast had actually given the girl an orgasm and everyone laughed.

I’d never been to Italy before and I ordered antipasti, Osso Bucco and Tiramisu.

I was in heaven but Helmut stated that if I kept eating this much I’d look like a Dutch heifer next to my fine-boned glass of Smirnoff Vodka and for the next two days June, his wife/assistant, ordered my meals of salad and fruit. I starved but I was terrified of Helmut and his cruel sense of humor, so I kept quiet.

I had my back to him in the shot while he said things like: She looks like a guy from behind, get me Dalma or Jerry, or anyone else who knows what she’s doing, Her hair is too short, her elbows too pointy.

It was hard to model with my back, sitting on the edge of a pool, legs in the water. There wasn’t much I could do to look different, sexier, curvier, more S&M, but I hoped my back looked angry, because I hated him, and I put all this emotion into my butt, my vertebrae, my neck, shoulder-blades, arms, hair, earlobes, and skin.

Afterwards, when I saw the ad, I realized he’d been obnoxious on purpose. He wanted that tension of anger. It showed. The ad was great and I was proud to have a Helmut Newton shot in my portfolio.


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I feel top-killed

there is too much. Too much going on. Too much to write so I dont write at all.
I want to write about oil and about my rejection letters and about Iona’s prom style graduation, and about our dinner party (i was going to post pictures and recipes) and our last weeks in Miami, and I want to write a letter to Obama urging him to get into a white clean up suit, get oily, clean a dying bird and weep, because thats what “the American People” want to see. Hell who wants him taking responsiblity? That sounds too much like taking the blame. No we want his tears while wearing a diving suit, holding a fisherman’s child – Reagan/Clinton style – only then will we feel he’s on top of the situation.

OK. So.

One week ago Iona had her graduation from middle school in the form of a lunch time dance. She went shopping with her two best friends, Lourdes and Josirus and called me. “Mommy, I found a dress, and its really cool, and I would never have picked it myself but Lourdes made me put it on, and its like chonga, like really hot, and I think you won’t like it, but it looks really good on me and they say i should get it, shall I take a picture of me, like wearing it, and send it to you?”

She called me! From the dressing room. She wanted me to see it, approve it. She wanted ME. Still at age thirteen, almost fourteen. I was touched. I said I trust your taste. If you love it then get it. I’m sure you look great.

 

red hot?

 

it’s all about the back, its like all open, but its cool.

 

my beautiful baby

 

So at 8.30 on Friday morning she stood and waited, in the street outside our house, for her friend’s car to pick her up. She looked self-conscious, her knees and feet turned in, her head cocked at an angle, too cool to smile and wave at me. She looked heart breaking, a mix of five year old girl and sexy young woman. Tears rolled down my cheeks. It wasn’t the cliche that they grow up so fast. I was just so proud of her, how she’s making her way and figuring it out, so lovely, so together, so smart and such a good friend. I love you Iona.

More to follow…


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Kevin Vertrees performs: Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be writers…

Inspired by, but improved upon, my lyrics of yesterday, thank you Kevin, you made my day!

Link:

http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_4019759


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Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be writers

On my way to school this afternoon, after a disheartening afternoon in my attempts to become a published writer, I thought to myself, best warn Iona not to become a writer.

One thought led to another, and I ended up humming the below re-write of Willie Nelson song…

Writers ain’t easy to love and they’re harder to marry
They’d rather slip you a poem than diamonds or cash
Endless good reasons and old faded flannels
And each night begins a new day.
If you don’t understand him, an’ he don’t die young,
He’ll prob’ly just slip away.

Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be writers.
Don’t let ’em pound MacBooks or ride them old bikes.
Let ’em be doctors and lawyers and such.
Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be writers.
‘Cos they’ll always be home, still they’re always alone.
Even with someone they love.

Writers like smokey old rooms, lonesome walks at dawn
Hot cups o’ tea and Google and porn in the night.
Them that don’t know her won’t like her and them that do,
Sometimes won’t know how to take her
She ain’t weird, she’s just smart but her pride won’t let her,
Do things to make you think she’s got it right…

Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be writers.
Don’t let ’em pound MacBooks or drive them old trucks.
Let ’em be doctors and lawyers and such.
Mamas don’t let your babies grow up to be writers.
‘Cos they’ll always be home, still they’re always alone.
Even with someone they love….


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The cats of Miami Beach

heading for the cat thicket

Along the beach there live cats. Hundreds, maybe thousands of stray cats. Abandoned cats that bred and breed. Black ones, white ones, tiger stripes, patch-work, ginger, tabby, siamese, persian, sleek, fat, old, young, long haired and practically bald ones. They  hide in the brush of the dunes when its hot , and when at around five in the afternoon the cat ladies arrive with their bags of food, they appear. Dozens of them curling around  lonely old ladies with plastic shopping bags filled with cans and dry cat food. Each tends her own herd  and some can become quite proprietary, like catty, when anyone else tries feeding their felines.

Kiki and Leila and I have become such cat ladies. Several times a week we visit our own gaggle that congregate near the beach entrance at Collins Park. We’ve counted over 24 of them. We have a favorite. Leila calls her  Claire, since she’s perfectly white and quite girlie. She’s our cat. She comes when we arrive and sits with us and lets the girls stroke her. We bring her a can of soft meaty food while the other twenty something get dry stuff that K and L carefully distribute into several neat and even piles.

kiki and claire

“Can we have Claire, Mommy?” They ask each time. And every time I have to say, no, this cat wont like our candyland bachelor pad. She likes being outside with her friends. She’ll claw her way through all DJ Tiesto’s furniture. We’ll lose our small-fortune deposit….

leila and claire

“PLEEEAASSSE,”

“NO”.

And then there are  tears – the tears of disappointment at the crushed fantasy of having Claire at home, snuggling on their bed, playing with catnip toys, purring on their lap while watching TV.

oh claire

No, No, No, I don’t want another cat. I love cats. I love Claire too. But I do not want another cat. No more bags of litter, and changing trays. No more white hair on every black dress that I own. No, No, No.

We are, and will remain, Miami Beach cat ladies…

For now.

the poser

the cleanser

the fighter


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a night with my Dutch landlord… aka DJ Tiesto…

still at home with Tiesto's super-sized photo...

In case you didn’t know, our landlord is DJ Tiesto, and our landlord performed at LIV the disco @ the Fontainebleau last night, actually this morning.

“I go on at 1 am,” he e-mailed, “till whenever…”

So we took a mega nap, woke at 11 and got done up. I knew the drill, after 8 months of Miami I’ve learned that Saturday night on the beach means a dress that ends at the crotch and stiletto’s that can skewer a rat without anyone noticing it stuck in the arch of the heel. I complied, included ample make-up  but went without my implants and the mandatory ironed blond hair. Would I get in? I was on the list. On the  VIP, Tiesto guest, A-list.

Still, the big black bouncer made me feel like shit as in the minority revenge dish best served cold, like really stone cold….

“Stay there”, he barked as I moved forward,  an inch past some imaginary line. “But, but..” He ignored me as I repeated Tiesto and my name in one sentence an embarrassing amount of times, while several  younger, tight skirted, ironed blondes squeezed past, pressing their hard, high and  large tits against me as if to say ” if you aint got these you ain’t goin’nowhere, bitch.”

But I got in. Eventually. So did husband. We got in. So there.

And it felt great. I’d taken half a Vicodin (what else are they good for) so everything was perfect.

“Ultimate 21st century kitsch”, husband said, “I love it.”

“Me too,” I said, looking around the space; chandeliers the size of UFO’s, almost naked waitresses balancing bottles of champagne decorated with sparklers,  a flashlight, like a small dildo  clenched between their lips to light their path, the monotonous beat pounding my chest and confusing my own heartbeat in an exhilarating kinda way.

The space filled up. Blah looking guys in shirts worn open over their jeans, and thousands of girls in tiny dresses,  all dresses. Not skirts and tops, not shorts, not leggings. But dresses. Whilst high I imagined doing a collection of dresses called LIV and selling them at the Fontainebleau store. Even with a hangover, the next day, this seems like a good idea. Like where do they get all those sexy dresses? Tight. Low cut. Sleeveless, strappy, strapless, hugging, clinging stretching with lots of bling, jewels, chains, buckles and sequins, in every color.

To get noticed in this sea of sexy the pro-dancers wore nothing. What else could they do? They wore bondage that passed for more than plain nudity and girated and pulsated on their small pedestals as if to show the other bitches who was hottest.

Like, mirror mirror on the wall who’s the gyratest of them all?

So finally Tiesto appeared on the stage. Unassuming,  not tall, not short, not gorgeous, not ugly. Just a blond guy from Holland in a striped Gap Tee and a smile that tried to please . The crowd went nuts. The beat amped up. Men holding poster board with giant letters pushed by. Girls hopped on the spot,  like  jumping beans, encased in their dresses.

T  I  E  S  T  O ….

I let go. I stopped watching and analyzing and judging, I just grooved. The music in tune with some ancient rhythm  in my DNA I too hopped and gyrated and danced on the spot, mesmerized by the light show, happy on scotch and chemicals, Tiesto took me off somewhere other than my mundaine mind.

Then, towards the end of his first set, as the naked dancers left the stage a happy guy leapt in their place.  He was a great dancer too, only heavily clad in a cool skinny suit and pork pie hat. The crowd cheered him on as he danced his heart out. Until. A large, a large pumped up security guy pounced him, slammed him to the ground, stepped on him and dragged him off the stage  so fast that the whole thing seemed surreal. Now I was paying attention again and I noticed the cordoned off areas around me and  people begging bouncers to be let in, as if here and there were two different experiences, like a better parallel Tiesto universe awaited on the other side of the black security tape.

I noticed Alastair shouting at the guard who’d dragged off  the happy dancer, “What did you get him arrested for? Having a good time in a disco?”

I tried to hang in my careless groovy state as I loitered up the stairs behind the stage, but a guard grabbed my arm and pushed me along,

“You cant stop here here,”  he said. “Why not?” I was still oblivious. “Its a rule,” he shouted. “Like Homeland Security?”I screamed back.

“Fuck this fascist shit,” Alastair said. “lets go home.”

So home we went and wondered what was up with the controlling “BlackWater” patrol  at a Miami Tiesto disco bash…


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look who came to visit…

one manatee, reaching to introduce herself to Kiki’s foot.

then there were four…

frolicking in Indian Creek, by our house…

friendly and oddly pre-historic…

s l o w  but equally interested in us…

the girls said “it was the best Earth Day thing that could have happened today.”

I noticed a plastic Publix bag drifting under water nearby and I prayed they wouldn’t mistake it for a large jelly fish and try to eat it…

Then a huge yacht came by, as they swam away and again I was aware how it easy it would be to hurt them, so laid back and cool, such a contrast against the speeding boat filled with tan girls in tiny bikinis, men with rippled chests, disco music blaring…

if I wanna make a change then every day is earth day… and the Gordon girls give thanks for the manatee…