miami vice

just fyi
lol

View from the porch
By EVE MARX


My foray into Miami vice

It was time to get outta Dodge, so Mr. Sax and I headed for the Million Dollar Sandbar, aka Miami Beach. Our impetus was a friend's birthday bash, but as there were there were nearly 69 extra hours to account for, we intended to get our money's worth.
Throwing down our bags down at the South Beach Marriott, we hit Ocean Drive for lunch. All the hostesses were half naked and imploring you to partake of the $9.99 prix fixed food and Happy Hour. We settled on Medi where I had buffalo wings and a mojito, served, I swear, in a bathtub.
Having been up since the crack of dawn, we snoozed by the pool, 3 pools, actually, one salt water. An annoying woman with a braying Long Island accent kept me from my book, “Riders,” by Jilly Cooper, a sexy, thinly-disguised novel about the British show jumping circuit. Quite late by Bedford standards (9 p.m.), we dined at Nemo's on grouper and crab.
The next morning we were up and at 'em at the hotel's buffet breakfast. The view of the ocean was stunning but you had to wait in line to warm your croissant. Afterwards we set off for the open air Lincoln Mall. There's excellent shopping in Miami if you're into Tommy Bahama, Zara, Bebe and Armani A/X. Afterwards it was back to the pool, where Mr. Sax glowered at the piggy persons who hogged the deck chairs.
That evening was the birthday party. Our friend, who split from Manhattan, is living in a gorgeous 17 story high rise overlooking the bay. Two bedrooms, two baths, parquet wood floors, and under $113,000. If you can handle the heat, the humidity, the scorpions and the alligators, Miami is a bargain.
The next morning we visited the Starbucks annexed to our hotel and partook of the gratis grande cappuchinos awarded to us as guests. I struck up a conversation with a local fellow about Lady Gaga and how she's put Madonna to rest. At 8:30 a.m. the place was a neighborhood scene, everyone accompanied by their cute dogs, a Chinese Crested, a Bull terrier and some other adorable creatures. At that hour, the only other tourists were a handsome German couple and their adult, chain smoking son.
To change things up, we lunched in Fort Lauderdale with a friend who was raised in in Mt. Kisco but now lives in Boca. She brought her new boyfriend, a contractor, who chose the Quarterdeck, which serves lots of booze and a classic iceberg/blue cheese/ bacon salad and super steamed clams. Lauderdale is a beautiful beach, which remained enticing despite the fact 3 people had drowned in the surf over the weekend. I felt badly about ducking out on another old friend, but with the clock ticking, I wanted to get more tanning time in.
Minor disaster struck at the beach as Mr. Sax's cell phone fell into the Atlantic, possibly because he had just been rattled by the orgy of naked flesh at a club called Nikki Beach he insisted we reconnoiter. According to its website, www.nikkibeach.com, this place has been called by the London Observer, “The Sexiest Place on Earth”. People from all over the world were throwing back champagne cockatils, stretched out on triple wide chaise lounges and teepees canopied in white linen to make them look like beds. The place reeked of decadence. Nikki Beach clubs are in Saint-Tropez, St. Barth, the French West Indies, Marbella, Cabo San Lucas, and Marrakech. If I were 30 years younger and 15 pounds thinner, I might have lingered. My refusal crushed Mr. Sax.
Dozens of lesbians were pouring out of the Savoy Hotel that evening which struck me as hysterical as I had noticed a sign outside the hotel declaring it the meeting place of Chabad. Miami is not called the American Riviera for nothing as a real international flavor is going down. My ears were ringing with the jabberings of young French, Spaniards, and Italians as well as Aussies and Brits.
We never made it to Joe's Stone Crab, open since 1913, or DeVito, Danny DeVito's restaurant. At DeVito you can order flights of steak, and porcini trio and Japanese Kobe beef and Australian Wagyu. We failed to make a reservation. If you go to Miami, please do.
There are dozens of gay clubs, Latin clubs, and then the elite spots like Mansion, Set, and Cameo. Having not heard of a single headliner (although I saw that Sean Diddy Combes will be at Mansion Memorial Day ) I hoped my husband wasn't too mad when I declined his invitation to stay out dancing 'til dawn. Instead we had French toast and white sangria at the News Café, and spent our final evening observing enormous SUV's with blacked out windows cruising at 5 mph up the strip and ogling the gangsta glitter on revelers whose party was just starting. The Sunday night scene reminded me of the Butthole Surfers song, “Shame of Life,” where the lyrics go, “There were girls in the front and there were girls back and there was girls pettin' squirrels and there was squirrels smokin' crack with an old Navy Seal and the DEA, and the loaded automatic just to blow me all away.” It was mind blowing. A modern Sodom & Gomorrah. Was it fun? Yes. Would I go back? Not on a weekend. What part of it would I love to see in Katonah, the backwoods where I live? Starbucks.