This Bud's On Me ~ What "Miami Style" Used To Mean

It was surreal, really. I'd been invited to a birthday party at a nearby coffee house, the kind with live folk music, but the place kind of stretches the definition of "coffee house" to encompass a wide selection of imported beers and wines. The "birthday girl" was a local folk singer, perhaps too young to remember Bob Dylan in his prime, but not exactly a spring chicken either.

The place was crowded beyond belief. Since you can't smoke inside anyplace these days there were plenty of people outside satiating their nicotine requirements. Business people, doctors, lawyers, essentialy an educated and upscale crowd. Suddenly the guy I was chatting with said "You smoke, don't you, Al?" I held up my bidi. "No no! that's not what I mean!" as he pulled a little pipe and a bud out of a zip-lock that he'd had in his pocket.

Here we were, a bunch of rapidly greying and balding middle age and older guys, pillars of the community, passing around the pipe, toking away! Law abiding, too! We were doing it outside, right? Right across the street from the police station. I hadn't smoked in years and rapidly got really ripped. My benefactor gave me a bud "for later". He was really proud of his son and the great weed the kid was growing in his hydroponic garden. I think he said it was in Oregon. Gotta be proud of your kids! It was indeed some good shit!

When I got home I scanned the bud. The next couple of nights I had a great time incinerating the evidence.

Nicholas The Story Teller

I first met Pat a month or so ago at one of Bonnie Schwartzbaum's campaign parties. Pat has passion for politics but she doesn't drive. I offered to drive her home. She lives just a few blocks from my house and I told her that if she ever needed a ride someplace just give me a call. I figured that was safe because her apartment was only a block away from Publix and within two or three blocks of both a Walgreens and a CVS.

A few days ago the phone rang. Pat needed a ride about forty blocks and and thanks to the good planning of Miami-Dade County's public transportation system that required two busses each way on a rainy day. I was free and she was ready when I was. I drove over there. She was waiting on the porch.

Almost as soon as she got in the truck she insisted that I take five dollars "for gas" and we did her errand. On the way back I was getting hungry and suggested that we go by Jimmie's Place and get some supper. While we were eating Nicholas came in so on the way out I introduced them to one another.

I first met Nicholas five or six years ago at the coffee house, the Lunastar Cafe,where he frequently tells stories on weekend nights, which is directly across the street from City Hall. He sometimes actually walks around town dressed like that, staight out of the middle ages. But then I frequently walk around town carrying my toy monkey, Monkette, and she too is well known at Jimmie's Place. The characters you see on the streets around here are almost as nutty as the ones you'll find inside City Hall.

Click on the picture and it'll get big enough to read Nicholas's contact information.

ROOTZ Gallery ~ My Photographs On Exhibit

Rootz is a new gallery located on the corner of West Dixie Highway and N.E. 124th St. For the longest time it was the location of Jaybo Photo, a custom lab and photo supply. Now Mario Flores has rented the place, cleaned it up, and put some fresh paint on the walls. It's now an art gallery! There are several rooms in the place, including a small upstairs.

The grand opening tomorrow night, Friday July 25th, will have oil paintings, etchings, drewings, I think some sculpture, and photographs by myself and another photographer, along with the usual opening night wine & cheese.

I'll be showing a number of my black and white photographs from the 1960's and 1970's, but for a change I'm also showing some of my new experimental black and white work. I know a lot of you enjoy seeing my older photos but now that I don't have to keep clients happy I've struck out in a new direction. I hope you like them.

Most all of the art galleries as well as the Museum of Contemporary Art will be open for the Friday night Gallery Walk sponsored by the City of North Miami. There'll be live jazz in the plaza in front of the museum. Across 125th St. from the plaza is the Lunastar Cafe, a coffee house with a wide assortment of coffees plus teas, imported beers and wines, and light food type things. Tell Alexis that I sent you...LOL

ROOTZ is about two blocks to the west of the museum.

Ex-wives...And He Stays Friendly With Them!

Al dragged me along to Claudia's house. She wanted him to take some pictures of her amarillis blossoming. I fugured "what the hell she always has some good homemade fruit cake", Al likes her coffee and he enjoys playing with her two dogs. He's known them since they were pups. Best of all, they seem to like me! Well, so does Claudia. She says that I keep him out of trouble, that I watch out for him. She just wishes that I agreed with her and Vivette about Al's shaggy mop of hair and just how much it needs, at the very least, a trim.

Hey Girl!, Al's MINE now. Ya hear me? I live with him. You guys are history ~ maybe good friends, but not a couple anymore, no way! And he better stay mine too!

Still, he worries me. Lately he's been spending way too much time on the computer, WAYYYY too much for my likings. Some chick out of his past name of Robin. They're always IMing one another and exchanging emails and chatting on the phone. At least she doesn't live in the Miami area, so maybe it's harmless. It BETTER be!

Oh yeah, in case you didn't guess from the low angle? I shot that photo of Al looking at the flower. Pretty good photograph, wouldn't you say? Nice composition, good exposure, great color!

I Think The Planners Got It Right This Time

A few years ago North Miami's main drag had steadily detiorated for four decades, ever since the business community had decided that the wave of the future was the shopping mall. As the years passed the new mall a few miles to the north became run down and this down town area was boorderline slum. The mall got a complete rebuild, but that didn't save it from desertion to an even newer fancier mall a few miles up the road.

Finally the city planners seemed to get it right. They finally realized that there wsas no way they were going to entice major deparment stores and chain retailers back to a traditional downtown. It just ain't gonna happen! The building owners were encouraged to redo the facades and adopt a uniform color palette. New brick sidewalks and and nice street lighting fixtures werre installed. Awnings were allowed over the sidewalks and coffee shops allowed to put tables and chairs out front on the sidewalk. Instead of hasseling "hippie" types of businesses coffee shops and small independent boutiques were encouraged. Art galleries and antique shops are flourishing. All the kinds of places that don't want to be in a mall.

North Miami has reduced the cost of buisiness licenses for arts connected places and simplified the pernitting process. One night each month they have Jazz at MOCA, live music in the plaza in front of the Museum of Contemporary Art.

These folks just bought some coffee at Starbucks, located in the building behind them, as they wait for the music to start. Another coffee house is the Luna Star Cafe across the street where Alexis Sanfeld will also make you a sandwich or sell you a beer or glass of wine. They both show works by local artists and photographers and have live music a few nights a week. Planning works if it's done right!