MiamiNights - Miami Night Clubs, Nightlife

Plum Miami Beach did a cool video feature on the Sunday night Bingo event at the Standard. This is one of the things I always say I'm going to do but never do. I swear playing bingo at the Standard is on my list of things to do in 2008. Shit, it's already April, I need to get on the ball!

Okay, well I put that rather crudely, but that's the gist of the New York Times article published Sunday that basically tells me what I already know: Miami's art scene is alive and well whether Basel is in town or not. The author has a rather odd fascination with prostitutes and crackheads, referring to them liberally every time she mentions Wynwood. We get it. Wynwood is Miami's crack den filled with art galleries. However, the author does hit in on the nail when recommending travelers to come after Basel when there is still plenty of great works of art to be seen and at the same time avoiding those Basel headaches like the velvet ropes and hordes of people.

Several of my favorite area businesses also get shout-outs like Domo Japones, Circa 28, White Room and Lost & Found Saloon. She says about Circa 28:

Even on nights when there are no receptions, the art party rages. At midnight on a recent Friday, a crowd had gathered at Circa 28, a chill bar that opened in Wynwood in December. It happened to be during the Art Basel fair, but there was not a dolled-up socialite or dark-suited corporate sponsor in sight. Abstract paintings hung crookedly on the walls, and young artists sat languidly under a bookshelf — in marked contrast to the hedonistic, bottle-service hangouts of South Beach. Outside on the deserted sidewalk, a truck pulled up and opened its flatbed to reveal a portable art exhibit and D.J. booth that began to play lounge music.

Soon people trickled out of the bar, beers and all, creating an ad hoc tailgate party. A police car was parked a block away but seemed uninterested. A good clean party is tolerated here, almost protected, in a neighborhood with a history of more serious crime.

Young artists? At Circa 28? Oh, I think she means the American Apparel employees in tight jeans and outdated sunglasses. Same difference, right? And oddly enough, Overtown/Wynwood mega-complex Karu & Y doesn't get mentioned. Are we over Karu & Y already?

[via Critical Miami/Nefarious Girl]

Not that we needed any vindication but Maxim Magazine has voted Miami the #1 Party city in the USA. As citizens of this wonderfully narcissistic society we cherish and love, we always knew no other city in the nation could compare to our hedonistic, drug adoring tendencies. The surprise inclusion however is Tampa at #6.

Kudos to the clubs, strip joints and promoters up in the bay area who are trying to make Tampa a party capital. Don't get your hopes up though boyoz because the chance you will ever be as "fun" and "hip" as us 305'ers is non-existent. Congrats Miami, continue your reckless ways with no remorse for future healthy lives. You can rest assured we here at Miami Nights won't.

It's that time folks! No, not that time to find my remote control because otherwise I can't mute Flight of the Conchords which is the most annoying show on television aside from Iron Chef America. It's time to party, to make a stinky, wretched joke out of ourselves and show those terrorists what a couple of haircuts with bar tabs can do.

Local scenester Danny Ashe's band, Marqui Adora, is playing at Circa 28 tonight around midnight. I can't hear too well ever since I was served that arsenic-tainted Midori Sour a few months back, but the New Times thinks they're hot shit, and that means something - as long as the Herald doesn't agree, because if they do that means we're fucked.

Wait, back to Flight of the Conchords. This show makes me think that one of three things is happening:

1. There is exactly one episode of Flight of the Conchords that they re-air constantly, or..
2. Every single episode of Flight of the Conchords is absolutely the fucking same, except with different shitty music, or..
3. I've just stepped out of a time machine back into whenever the last time I watched Flight of the Conchords was, but I am now significantly more stinky and downtrodden

I don't usually announce house parties (those are parties held in people's houses, as opposed to parties filled with drug addicts who prefer a moribund form of dance music), mostly because of what happened last time we announced one (if you weren't there, picture a bunch of indie kids getting swarmed by killer bees, and the bees are on fire for some reason, and more importantly someone stole the bottle of Popov that I brought). In this one case I'll make an exception because it isn't bee season.

Brando Serpico, of recent mohawk fame, is having an afterhours house party at his new pad located on North Miami Ave and 33rd Street. Bring liquor. If you show up before 4am you're going to encounter him diddling the homeless so don't risk it.

I ended up getting up and turning off the TV.

In what will be the final primetime Thursday night game in the Orange Bowl your Miami Hurricanes made it a memorable evening. Coming into the game unranked and with a record of 2-1 the Hurricanes were facing a 20th ranked Texas A&M squad. Boasting a triple offensive threat with two great running backs and a mobile QB this was a perfect opportunity for the UM swagger to return to the bright lights. And oh how the boys from Coral Gables delivered.

The Aggies went three and out in their first drive and the Canes orchestrated an 18 play, 80 yard drive down field to open up the scoring bonanza on their first possession. Let me tell you, as a loyal and true Canes fan it was quite a site to see the offense march down the field with such authority. With balls fumbling out of Aggie hands, an interception and back breaking defensive hits it reminded me of the days of yore, like the whooping we laid on the Gators in The Peach Bowl in '04. And to see the defense manhandle the Aggies offensive line with such dominance was simply beautiful. The Randy Shannon era is in full swing already and we can finally get past the Coker years.

Let the college nation be warned, The U won't be taking a whooping no more. Those other Florida teams aint got shit on our 5 National Championships and were gonna remind them why The U is the best football team in the state of Florida. Farewell OB, you have been a beacon of top notch football since 1930. Witnessing the only undefeated season in NFL history and playing host to the great 5 time National Champion Hurricanes. Your low bathroom entrance ceilings, cracked concrete walls, open ended endzone, wide right Seminole field goals and terrible sound system will be missed. But we will make sure you go out in style.

This is a pretty amazing story. A student gets manhandled by police and then tasered simply because he forcefully asked John Kerry why he conceded the '04 election. If I were that kid I would have resisted arrest as well. CM and SoTP have comments on this already but I figured I would put the vid up. Watch at the end as 6 officers fail to subdue a skinny 21 year old kid and then taser him. Listen to the screams of agony as 50,000 volts course through his body. It's riveting youtubage!

Miami New Times' Elyse Wanshel hits the mark when she pyscho-analyzes Jessica Simpson's fashion show during Miami Swim last week. Although, I could have told Wanshel that shit was going to suck to begin with. Celebrities don't dress themselves, they hire people to do that shit for them. I mean ladies, if you want to look like an orange blow-up doll, by all means follow in Simpson's footsteps.

[image via Miami New Times] 

Stuck on the Palmetto found a gem of an article that the Washington Post published a few days ago. Writer Necee Regis travels away from the glitz and glamour, which often misleads outsiders to think that's all Miami has to offer, and shows readers the city is more than just man-made beaches, art deco buildings and surgically altered beauties. Regis takes us on a tour of Wynwood, Biscayne Corridor, Little Haiti/Design District and Brickell, showcasing a wide variety of things to do and places to eat that SOTP's Rick wisely points out, most of us probably didn't know existed.

I can say this article has got me all excited, there a few places mention that I've been always meaning to check out but have always put them off for one reason or another. And congrats to Circa 28 who got a shout out on a national and widely circulated newspaper.

Ever since I started working for MiamiNights there has been a large amount of unnecessary stalking and harassment of the sexual and social kind that has occurred to myself and to members of my extended entourage of beautiful and high class society women and men, who I have hand selected and humanely harvested from the best families of the Tri-County area. The recent arrival of these flaxen-haired, toned, literate, learned, socially conscious and jewel-bedezzalled individuals in the upper echelons of the Miami party circuit, to say nothing of their contributions to the plethora philanthropic organizations that MiamiNights associates itself with, has not gone entirely unnoticed by various esteemed publications, periodicals, scientific journals, advertising circulars, and, let's be honest with one another, muck-raking, yellow, bird-cage lining, all-out shitty and wholly unreadable rags.

During our morning Victorian-style tea party (which, due to no fault of my own, often veers far to the left, from a delightful society dames' social event concerned only with topics such as doilies and pubic waxing, into a "V for Vendetta"-style nightclub-destruction/anarchocapitalist strategy pow-wow, featuring surprisingly strong homoerotic and magickal overtones) it has been brought to my attention, with troublingly-frequent regularity, the undeniable fact (whose statistical underpinnings can be scientifically tracked and measured by rambunctious college freshmen most easily by analyzing the data and behavioral patterns of MySpace and Facebook users) that, through association with this well-respected nightlife blog, they have drawn themselves into a tsunami of unwanted, and in most cases professionally unethical, attention, heaped upon them by grease-trap slurping, pockmarked, uneducated, irresponsibly-unmotivated, unflappable douchebags (the likes of which have never been assembled in one place, short of a record industry convention, dental school graduation ceremony, paintball tournament, or open bar at Pawn Shop).

So, it is with heavy heart, and iron, disciplined hand (yes, predictably, wearing one of those forward-thinking fingerless glove designs that I am known to fancy while strolling the fashionable promenades of the most erudite European provinces, often in the company of my dear friends Pip and Angeline, who, coincidentally, are the heir and heiress of a famous eye model's vast estate and considerable fortune, though mostly tied up in peasant land holdings across the French countryside, whose steely-blue gaze could at once weaken the heart of even the most closeted sartorial critic, and also put the fear of death in the mind of a Vespa-riding mob-affiliated steroid-injecting madman, though, truthfully, her position in society has irrefutably weakened after her untimely demise, as she lies only in a pine box at the foot of the towering Cliffs of Dover with nary a mourner nor heavy-lided teary eye in sight), that I plead, with my savagely-beating heart pinned to my woolen sleeve, for the cessation of grievous misallocations of attention, the recipients being primarily myself and rest of the Miami Nights travelling brigadiers, that have occured of late. Frankly, it's killing my buzz, and I already have enough shit to deal with not having a real job.

Peace, and Lackner, where's my check?

This is definitely one of those don't-miss-it-because-you'll-probably-regret-it events. Low B of Hollertronix will be spinning tomorrow night at Spiderpussy at PS14. Who is Low B you ask? He and Diplo and their Hollertronix party single-handedly put Philadelphia on the party music map. While Hollertronix isn't really doing much anymore, Diplo and him have kept busy. Diplo has produced many tracks for M.I.A. and remixed for the likes of Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Gwen Stefani, while Low B has been heralded as one of the best party DJs out there, and for good reason. Low B doesn't follow any rules and doesn't stick to any genre, but by no means will you dare call him an open format DJ. The term "open format" is insulting. What he does is he makes sure you have one sick-ass time. He understands how to keep a crowd on the dancefloor all night long. But don't take my word for it, go tomorrow and see for yourself. DJ Contra will also be there to keep things moving. And make sure to check out the video below of Low B in action!