friday may 25 2001    |    6:39 p.m.

you have seen some unbelievable things . . .

i am thinking of you and i am thinking of m_. one day maybe i'll remind him about the bag o' beard taped to my door: he might get a kick out of it.

it's raining in miami: it's been raining desperately all week, after a drought of roughly two months. it's like all that water had been collecting in a big cloud-balloon until it popped, and boy oh boy did it pop all of a sudden. the sky is completely opaque and luminously gray, but not like in ohio where you feel like the sky is maybe three feet above you and hurtling downwards. here in south florida it makes an arc at what seems like atmosphere-height, and the arc is the rain puring down in sheets. two hours later the clouds blow away and take with them the water, and again the sky is a radiant art deco blue.

it's been good, having my uncles here for the transition from college to no more college, mid-ohio to south florida, glossy greenery to damp tropicalia. all the sightseeing and mini-tour-giving has reacquainted me with the old environs, forced me to rediscover what i love about this place. in little havana, the afternoon tertualias of the locals on streetcorners by curbside cafetería windows, drinking coladas and smoking cigar and talking about politics (cuba). in key biscayne, eating oysters and crab- and lobstermeat pasta at the rusty pelican; driving by viginia key beach, one of the very few remaining unspoiled public stretches of sand and ocean, which, when south florida was still segregated, was the only all-black beach in the area. the exuberance and excess of south beach, which i get to see in full effect tonight -- the uncles are taking me out to sushi (at sushi hana, next door to uncle sam's), and then i'm taking them out clubbing or drinking at the very least. most breathtaking of all, the nighttime skyline, downtown miami skimmed by the multicolored, neon-lit metrorail tracks as you drive by on 95.

slowly i think i'm coming to terms with all these changes. shedding the midwest, which threatened not to let go for the first couple of days, and making room again for the tip of this extra-u.s.a. peninsular circus. i say "circus" and mean it in the best way possible, connotations and all. we're proud of our pace down here.

yesterday night ed took me down to the studio-slash-"clubhouse" in hialeah, which is affectionately dubbed the latin ghetto. stripmall urban landscape with some latin flava, and all the charm that goes along with that -- believe it or not, you can find charm among miles of concrete-block businesses housing classic chickens and mirta's nails and abandoned cigar factories.

the studio is a small foam-padded room in a warehouse of similar small foam-padded rooms -- band practice rooms, mainly, and most of the renters -- djs, local musicians -- all know each other, and meet in the dank cramped hallway for smokes and chilling. ed's room is full of equipment i can't name, two or three guitars, a drumset in the back, a comfy pullouch couch, band posters, and cds everywhere. once inside we listened to a couple of bands to be included on the label comp, and i was indoctrinated into the world of, in ed's words, Life-Changing Music Everyone Should Know About: the jesus and mary chain, the wedding present, swervedriver. towards the end, the list gets fuzzy, because that's when ed produced the green bong, and when roxana and eric from see venus droped by the studio to pick up an amp for tonight's show, and weather the deluge. (here, when it rains, it really rains, noah's-ark style.)

so this afternoon when i check my e-mail i have this from ed: "i had a really great time last night." [excerpt] um . . . that doesn't sound very professional to me. granted, we're friends, and part of it is hanging out and all, but . . . i don't think i like the sound of that. i think i'm going to start calling him "dude" a lot more. just in case.

in smaller, more localized news, i've been reading issues of new times old and new, and finally started the great catalán writer josep pla's the gray notebook, but in spanish (castellano), not in catalán, because i'm a bad descendant of catalanes and only kind of speak -- & definitely don't read -- the language.

listening to sean na na repeatedly, tirelessly. and then the afghan whigs, which fits. gentlemen and black love, which i never did return to bart.

the uncles will be here soon . . . off to find a pair of dancin' shoes.

and the wichita lineman is still on the line . . .