South Beach Meanderings

Damn it. I was in the market for used panties.

Last weekend, I attended a daytime event in South Beach and when it was over I had a few hours to kill. I was in no rush to get home, so I walked about a mile from Waxy's to The Raleigh and took my sweet old time to do it.

It was all rather surreal ...

Is it just me or has Washington Avenue become even dirtier, smellier and skankier than before? I had to cover my nose on some corners. And the sight of homeless people! One woman must have been 100 years old, a wizened, leathery sack of flesh, wearing a bikini top under her dowager's hump. She broke my heart.

I stopped at Lush to see if I could find my friend Ipanemic. He wasn't there, but his photo was. Lush is a beer and wine only type of dive, an oasis of normal in the middle of fantasy land. Nevertheless, the bartender and a guest went on forever about fake boobs and fitness.

Ipanemic's photo is above the pool table.

Next stop, Club Deuce, which was fun as always, cheap and lively. You can never go wrong at South Beach's oldest remaining dive bar.

Eventually, I found Ipanemic eventually at his workplace and caught up with him. Thankfully, he wasn't making deliveries that evening.

Near Sum Yum Gai, the Chinese restaurant on Washington Avenue, some dude was walking around with a Madagascar lemur on his shoulder and no, it wasn't an animal act. He was, however, sporting a toy alligator puppet on his arm, which he used to scare unsuspecting girls on the sidewalk.

Is it even legal to own a pet lemur in Florida?

Further still, in some shit hole shop, I was terribly disappointed to find I couldn't buy used panties. (See photo above.)

As I passed by the nightclub Cameo some guidos on the corner made a flattering comment about my cleavage and then as I walked by the strip joint Club Madonna I wondered about the value of that comment.

On the corner of Lincoln and Washington I saw a bevvy of beauties going to a club ... or was it a pack of hos? They were all dressed the same: five inch heels and micro mini black dresses so short I could see their ovaries.

Turning the corner, I patronized the bar a new club called Vice, which promises to be ... yet another South Beach club. The same cocktail here was twice as much as the one at Club Deuce and the atmosphere not nearly as good -- very pretty interior design, though.

On Lincoln Road, some guy in a wife beater was peddling hard as he used a locked up Miami Beach Deco Bike as a stationary exercise machine. This trumped the lemur. Classic!

Why pay for a spinning class at gym when you can use DECOBIKE for free?

On Collins Avenue, a storefront somehow reminded me of some messed up holy representation of motherhood.

Hope she be carryin' some milk in dem jugs!

Things got better. As if the evening hadn't been weird enough! When I finally arrived at The Raleigh, I decided to have a nightcap. Are you sitting down? My bartender was a wholesome, handsome tall and tan blonde model from the Midwest who wasn't gay and played rock and roll music at the bar.

Pinch me.