Niero

My apartment is up for sale, so I'm documenting the things I'll miss.  Here's one of my favorites -- watching a storm blow by through mid afternoon.  I was lucky to catch one on Saturday.  When its over, the house fills with the coolest shade of tangerine sunlight. Add a melancholy Led Zeppelin song and put a fork in me.

Rain 1

Rain 2

Rain 3

Rain 4

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A retarded vision of awesome

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If you've survived your early twenties, there's a high probability that you have rocked out (with a shit-eating grin on your face) to a completely cheesy 80's song you had all but completely forgotten existed.   It's absurd fun, and a gentle reminder to instantly remember your age ... and dance like you hadn't.

I was milling around at Lackner's going away party on Friday, coupled by a MiamiNight editor's birthday party.  We gathered in a tiny club/bar that plays indie and retro called Boutique, trampling on each other and yelling sarcastic and affectionate things over the DJ's performance like great friends do. After a proper consumption of SoCo sauce I got hit in the face with an Eurythmics-like keyboard loop that knocked all tension from my jaw. But it was not Sweet Dreams. It was something else.

80s - Send Me An Angel - Real Life

OPEN FIRE!  ON MY BURNING HEART
I'VE NEVER BEEN LUCKY IN LOVE
MY DEFENSES ARE DOWN
A KISS OR A FROWN
I CAN'T SURVIVE ON MY OWN

Intense!  I had to laugh. And so it played on, exploding in the back of my head all night like a Saturday Night Live skit. Nobody I was with had actually seen the movie RAD and I was doing an incredibly bad job of explaining it as "Footloose with bikes", so I dutifully sent links you ripped YouTube clips when I got home.  Seeing it now was so much worse and infinitely more hilarious than I remembered it. The padded-ass stunt double.  The RickRolling camera shots as they stood on rolling platforms, feet chopped.  So bad, but so good. Bare witness to what every kid in the 80's aspired to become:

I get in the elevator with a short woman in Mount Sinai.  She's wearing an electric pink shirt with glittery things on it.  I read her breasts without apology. It says "Diva". We smile and make no conversation. Instead, I mostly spend the ride up to the eighth analyzing my ugly running shoes with endearment.

Upon arrival they hand me terrible forms to fill, which I've learned to do on autopilot.  A sweaty looking slender man in his late forties breaks my concentration.  He's nervously chatting with a younger guy who seems very uncomfortable.  I get the impression that he's ignoring him as politely as one does to a crazy person who means no harm. He's venting about something, presumably sports. I try to tune them out and plug away. 

"Gonzalez?"  I raise my hand and walk across. Doc says I'll get over my flu before my flight and prescribes some weird mess with at least two Z's in it.  No blood work, no fuss. "You'll live."

As I enter the waiting room again, I notice that the same chatty guy is standing there in his ugly blue plaid shirt, receiving goodbyes from a larger group of strangers with eyes all transfixed on him.  As I'm passing them, a leathery older man in a hat says "Sorry 'bout your mom" and then backs into me softly.  The three of us then silently form a circle, make apologetic hand gestures, and walk away in a second. We exchange a brief hard glance. I feel that he knows I've heard what the man said, probably by the look on my face. I save the elevator with my foot and we get in.

The blue man leans near the door and I walk to the back of the deep rectangular elevator, facing him.  We both look at the floor at first, but then I look at him, and he begins to stare at the wall in front of him like he's watching airplanes landing in a terminal.  I'm trying to think of what facial expression I could offer or what I'd say, but instead I'm squirming in the back there locked in like that kid I saw earlier.  There isn't ER on that floor, so I didn't know what to think. It was just mother's day weekend though.  What the hell did this guy just go through? 

His head eventually cocks up and he faces the door early.  Right before the doors open he whispered a few things slowly in the way that an old engine does when the key is removed from the ignition.  I didn't understand a single word of what he said.  He walks out slowly, head hung, and walks West. I didn't dare walk past him and just took my time a few steps behind with my sunglasses on for protection. My car was in the adjacent lot but after circling the hospital we ended up driving out the same way.

Raul found this amazingly dull video. Funny how music video directors had no idea on what to do with the emerging art form at first. 

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Submitted by Matt Blank.

I'm at least 30% to blame for this