Time really has a way of condensing the important things in your past into compact little memories neatly filed in my tornado wracked library. Once again, the ability to blog ebbed away while major action transpired. Not exactly ideal for blogging updates, and lends itself to long entries, but if you are enjoying this at work, I'll try to draw it out in a windy Southern fashion.
I guess I left off last Thursday, over two weeks ago. Oh yes, Thursday. And Friday...And Wednesday. These are days of the week. Perhaps it was Wednesday after all. I took the tricycle out for a spin, anticipating some action from all the people that were supposedly coming to town for the Super Bowl. What I got was bupkus and a mohawk. I rolled out to Las Olas and it was slow and I heard from others that the beach was slow, so I didn't make the extra two mile effort to get out there, and posted up in the usual places. I made about $30 and saw Joe Montana. I asked Marshall Faulk is he wanted a ride. I saw Larry Brown (Cowboys guy) outside of a jewelry store with his Superbowl ring. I said "Fuck this, there's nothing going on! " When I go back to the shop, I rolled up on pedicabbers giving pedicabbers mohawks. That's when I knew it was over. Au revoir, mon coif. I ended up with the skin tight, headslicked sides with a full beard and a stegosaurus strip. Very Mr. T. As I was getting buzzed, I said, "Fuck it, I'm not seeing any action anyways." I find that sometimes you just need a game changer. That very night out at the bar on South 2nd Street in Fort Lauderdale, I was getting mad looks from chicks. No opener required, I've got a ridiculous mohawk. "Hey, nice mohawk." Oh, hai. You on facebook? hahaha
Thursday was I guess more of the same. I made another $30 but went out to the beach this time. The duration of my evening was spent pondering whether I should quit the scene and go to a bike ride in Miami that goes by the name of "Loose Canons". It is essentially a route-less race from point A to point B, winner take a $50 bar tab. You better believe the cheap hipsters show up. I got there late because I had a fence stuck up my ass for most of the evening, and exiting any pedicab shop is difficult for me to exit quickly due to all the socializing I find myself prone to. I drove back, biked out to what ended up being a one beer stop at the quite northerly oriented "News Cafe", since Mike's friend, a lawyer had to go do legal things the following morning. I got a few eyefucks on my hipster bike as I rolled up extremely late with a gigantic chain lock slung around my shoulder like Andre the Giant's leotard strap. We rode home to Miami Beach (6.5 headwindy miles), misfired at a closing Zeke's for one beer, re-upped at Abraxas, then shut it down at the Abbey, par for the course, burning the night down with fine beer. My dad's girlfriend would say, "You do treat yourself well." I smile at this. Shall I instead inflict pain upon myself?
Friday had a fast start for work, but rain canceled what could have been an otherwise profitable night. Early to bed, early to rise, I guess.
I took my first ride on Saturday at around 2:45. I managed to get a ride from downtown to the beach, which was completely solid. Once I got down to the beach, I could not stop getting rides. I was not prepared for how insane things were going to be. The NFL had sponsored a concert out on the beach that tens of thousands of people were planning on attending. Performing at the concert were such artists as Barenaked Ladies, and..some other guys. And that band. Yep. But a lot of people were there and they were getting hammered, or old, and therefore, taking rides. It was similar to the 4th of July in Boston, except for more money, and the weather was good. It really took me by surprise and I went at riding so hard, I was being stubbornly short sighted about my body and what it was gonna have to do the following day, but this is what it was about. I was so tired when I returned at 1 am, and knowing that I had to be back at the shop at 9 am, I just had to crash there, rather than risk my Superbowl bike spot by exposing it to entropy. Also sleeping at the shop was Henry, a Spanish former stripper pedicabber. He told me he used to sing to the ladies and take off his clothes. I can still remember the tune he belted through the shop. I never saw him naked. Score. He slept in a tent he set up in the loft of the shop.
I slept well for four hours, solidly, but knew that I'd be interrupted early the next morning by all the commotion for bike prep. My first order was, of course, to obtain coffee. I stocked myself up so well with peanut butter and jelly, bananas, protein bars, a sandwich, my canteen, and a gallon bottle of water, AND a powerade, that I almost couldn't fit everything into the cab, but thanks to Tetris, I'm a champion.
I scored a bike that was geared high, had a fairly comfortable seat, and got out there. I tried working the casino area on the far side of the stadium, an area other guys cleaned up in for the Probowl. Scored a few good rides out of it because we were charging like 50 or 60 bucks to go from this lot to the stadium, but it was over saturated straight away, so I made the decision to quit that scene pretty early. I headed over to the near parking lots and found myself on a pretty excellent loop. I started out by handing out business cards and drumming up business, and soon I was inundated with people trying to get rides. I went from the parking lot to the stadium entrance (less than a mile of riding, usually a 5-7 min ride due to the nature of the traffic, at $15 a person + tip. Yup. That's what we were told to charge. I was typically getting $40 per ride. You can imagine this added up quickly. I even had a fairly productive mid game. Some people were looking for tickets into the second half, as some people began to trickle out. Laurence Fishburne had seen enough before heading to his limo when I took a ride to the scalpers' corner with two people that were willing to pay $600 for tickets that they could not properly authenticate, wasted about 15 minutes of my time, and gave me a "nice little tip" of $6 on top of the $20 I charged them. Just not getting it. But then you go back and you say to yourself, "That's a good problem to have. I was just dissatisfied with a $26 fare. Don't be a baby." And you go get the next one because it could be the hondo. Apres c'est, le deluge.
When the rush hit, I thought it would perhaps be weak, or too fast. I couldn't have been happier to put my pedal foot in my mouth. I completely forgot that after somebody wins the Superbowl, a celebration ensues. So when the Saints went up by two touchdowns, a stream of unhappy Colts fans trudged out, followed by exuberant, jubilant Saints fans, then followed by angry and confused people looking for a cab whose fanship was now a non-issue. Real life was setting in, we have to get out of here! I got back into this probowl loop going out to that Norland school for big bucks. As I rolled deeper and deeper into the hood, it became apparent to me that no cabs were making it down to the stadium because inbound traffic had been severed at 12th street (2.5 miles away). Dingdingdingding. I KNOW WHERE TO GET A CAB, IT'S THREE MILES THAT WAY AND I CAN TAKE YOU THERE FOR $50. NO YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND! NO CARS ARE COMING DOWN HERE, THEY CAN'T!!!! Back and forth, for a postgame that went like 2.5 hours, maybe 3. It just wouldn't end. Even when everyone was gone, I kept getting rides. I did a 4 miler for a facecard, booked back, picked up, booked back. My pedicab/Bostonian friends, think about taking every ride out of Fenway to Boylston and Tremont, making it back to Copley, then driving to the North End, just to turn around again. Really long rides. I became very nervous about the money in my pocket. Despite my whiteboy anxiety, I was the last pedicab in. Heading back in the bus with everyone, I realized that it would be an opportune time to hold us up for $25,000 or so, at the expense of just a few friendships. Last known location..... It might dramatically change my itinerary. Mexico.
When we all got back to the shop, we broke things down, and headed down to Grady's where everyone proceeded to drink $6 pitchers of beer and absolutely mao every burger in the pub. I got wings in addition to my burger. Yes, I maoed them, as well.
My last few days in Miami, without getting hourly specific, were great breathers for what I just went through. I got out up in Hollywood with Lauren, went swimming on South Beach in water that was as warm as it ever gets in Boston, took a run up and down the beach to air dry, went for some nice riding, and went on the car stereo installation adventure. I had the epiphany when I transferred belongings into my home in NY that I had traded my N64 for a car stereo back when I had my VW, or something, and never got it installed. So I put it in my car underneath the passenger seat and I wanted to make it happen, but upon venturing out to get the pieces, it became evident that I could not remove the faceplate, my car is old and the pieces I needed are difficult to find, even out in Little Havana, car stereo bootleg supercenter. So I bought a new stereo! It has an auxiliary jack to plug my iphone in for tunes, and a detachable face plate. Now I can put you on speakerphone in the longshot and broadcast you throughout the entire car, roll down my passenger side window (because the driver's side window still hasn't been repaired) and blast our conversation to the neighborhood as I softly bang my head to whatever you are sayin' that just rocks so hard. Isn't that just the coolest?
Actually installing this stereo was the trick. MVP goes to Mike Marshall for helping me with this. So let me lay this out so you can visualize this effort. From the dash down, I have the heating controls, the radio, a small storage bin about the size of a car stereo, and an ashtray which I use essentially for quarters. We take the car's plastic encasement off, extract the stereo, detach the bin, and discover that, since the stereo has not moved from it's rig in 26 years, it might be a bit stubborn. The screws that hold the stereo into its bracket for mounting in the dash are of poor quality, and we only get one out, stripping the rest of them out, trying everything, bike lube, brute force, to get them out, and failing. So the solution was to ditch the little storage bin, and install my new stereo where the bin used to be, directly below my other retro stereo. So now, after much manipulating of the car, I have a big block of stereo just kinda hulking there, and the ash tray, which we had to kind of break to make it functional as an ipod resting place/quarter holder, sits under it all. Necessary tack, had to have tunes. It sounds great, and now I can listen to my instructional Spanish CD's. I'm on lesson 4 of 8.
Tuesday ended up being the barnburner night of drinking before I skipped town. Sucked it up at trivia at Abraxas, had another bottle of Brooklyn Black Ops, went to the Sandwicherie, The Abbey, The Room. Mike ate shit on our ride down to The Room. It was madness. We hit like every great place in Miami Beach, including the terribly shitty place named "Club Deuce", a place where my hot older neighbor who I had serious late night sexual tension with, but turned out to be kind trashy worked. It's a tourist trap in a Dive Bar's clothing. So let's see, that would be khaki boxer shorts with ripped skinny jeans over and exposing them, a Hawaiian under shirt that has a nipple escaping and a trucker hat that is not ironic, but was given for actually being the "World's Greatest Dad", while wearing penny loafers. Also taking suggestions for this costume. $5 PBR??? I'll have a crab juice, thanks. One and we were done.
The End of the World...
Glade riding...
Some photos...
Unfortunately I didn't catch any video of right before we left when this last gator sort of mooed at me and made a little two-move step towards me. Then he just hung out nodding for a period of time before Mike warned me not to tempt fate. I agreed it was time to stop dicking around.
On the way back, we stopped at a Yelp three star reputed BBQ place where we had slobbering BBQ pork sandwiches, and I ordered gator bites, small fried bits of gator meat. The service forgot that I ordered or "didn't hear me" ask for them, so I took them to go. The smell of them. It permeated the car. Mike was gagging and he seriously wanted to break and jump out the window. I mean I ordered 'em, I wanted 'em, I had to try 'em! They actually really do taste like chicken. It's reminiscent of the quality of meat they use for certain Chinese dishes. Gamey, yet easily disintigrated as you chew the gator. But I saved my gator for later. Didn't have no refrigerator for that gator. It was my later alligator. (rimshot)
So when we got back, we put the final touches on my stereo, mashed the ashtray in under it, and then I had to head off for Orlando, where I was going to crash for the night. I stopped in Fort Lauderdale to pick up what was left in the shop, caught some of the guys and said goodbye. Of course before I left Florida, I had to go to Total Wine and grab some nice beers. I bought a good one for Keith, the general manager, just to say thank you for the work. Luckily, he was still kicking around the shop when I got in at 8 pm, so I got to give it directly to him, and he lit up. I guess I hit the mark. Then I hit the gas. Munching on gator bites up to Orlando, I zoomed there in about 4 hours to get out to a great dive called Willy's on Mills with Rachel at about midnight or 1230. The bartender was unabashedly sporting a belly shirt that I think I'll call insufficiently large. Or maybe it was just her gut that had a proficiency in size. She was off the chain. I think I accidentally tipped her $20 on two PBR's. It's only money, and it's gone now.
Now I don't regret staying an extra night in Orlando, it was raining, afterall so I didn't feel like pulling a 10 hour drive in bad weather, and it set me up for the masterpiece of partying that they call Mardi Gras, but Mardi Gras was so ridiculous that I ought to have been there earlier. But I'll let you be the judge of whether I did it right in the next entry. I think it's time to get brutally honest about it all.
Statistics:
234 miles from Miami Beach to Orlando
$11 for gator bites
$5 to gain access to the Shark Valley National Park and ride a bike with gators.
$1925 from the Superbowl. Best. Day. Ever.
25-30 The conservative estimate of how many times I heard Rachel say, "scheizer"
1 bagel
$100 for my stereo
8 total mohawks received by Oceanview Rickshaw drivers.
10-12 total hours spent on that last multimedia blog entry. What a bitch.
Beers from...
Day 30 Mohawk eve with Irish Dean, Sean, Eric, Serge
163 Miller High Life bottle @shop
164 Miller High Life bottle
165 Miller High Life bottle
166 Northern Lights IPA @Original Fat Cat's
167 Northern Lights IPA
168 Northern Lights IPA
169 Bud bottle @America's Back Yard
170 Stone Ruination IPA @Original Fat Cat's
Day 31-Mike
171 Tucher @The News Cafe
172 Sam Adams Noble Pils @Zeke's
173 Cigar City Jai Alai IPA @Abraxas
174 St Bernardus ABT 12
175 Abbey Immaculate IPA @The Abbey
176 Saison DuPont glass
Day 32-Shop/Mike's for poker/home
178 Dogfish Head 60 min IPA
179 Dogfish Head 60 min IPA
180 Dogfish Head 60 min IPA
181 Dogfish Head 60 min IPA
182 Sam Adams
183 Presidente
Day 33
NOTHING
Day 34 Superbowl Sunday
184 Pitcher of Bud @Grady's
185 shot of Jameson
186 Delerium Nocturnum @The Abbey
187 Fin du Monde
Day 35
188 Abbey Immaculate IPA @The Abbey
189 Abbey Immaculate IPA
190 Indica IPA @PRC Euro Cafe
191 Arrogant Bastard
192 Starr Hill Jomo Lager @Mickey's (iphone corrected me to "homo" lager)
193 Black and Tan
194 Cannot remember @PRC Euro Cafe
195 Half Stoudts half Abbey IPA @The Abbey
196 Half Stoudts half Abbey IPA
197 Victory Prima Pils
Day 36 Mike, Josh, Greg
198 Dogfish Head 60 min @home
199 Cigar City Jai Alai IPA @Abraxas
200 Brooklyn Black Ops
201 Arrogant Bastard Double Bastard
202 Red Hook Slim Chance
203 Chimay White
204 Sam Adams @Club Deuce
205 Half Stoudts half Abbey Immaculate IPA @The Abbey
206 Something @The Room
Day 37 Frank, Mallory, Ken
207 Sam Adams Noble Pils @Waxy O'Connor's
208 Sierra Nevada Glissade
209 Pilsner Urquell @Mike's
210 Father Theodore's Imperial stout @The Abbey
211 Fin du Monde
212 Anchor Liberty Ale
213 Presidente @home
Day 38 Ride and Drive
214 Dogfish Head 60 Min IPA@home
215 Shot of Jameson @Rachel's
216 James and Ginger
217 PBR Tall Boy @Willy's on Mills
218 PBR Tallboy
219 Brooklyn Hoppenweiss @Rachel's
Day 39
220 Orlando's Red Ale @Jax's (where Rachel works)
221 St. Bernardus
222 Dogfish Head 60 Min IPA
223 Yeungling @Rachel's
224 Yeungling
Day 40
Nothing.
Mike wins MVP for Florida. Easily. Would not have done so many cool things if he wasn't around. It was so great to have friends down there, it's just sanity. Boston's starting to really end for me, as new and wonderful people and things pop into my life.
Severe Mardi Gras post next. I rolled into New Orleans at 1:30 central time with nowhere to stay, illegally parked my car at a motel I didn't stay at, assembled my bike and rode to Bourbon St. Why worry?
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