Many of us have buyer’s remorse, and although you may wish you could, unless you are watching Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future, you can forget about time traveling backward now or ever. Yet if I were able, I would attend a few events that I missed this gorgeous winter but pretend November never happened.
Somehow I missed the Branford Marsalis Quartet with always transcendent, special guest Kurt Elling at the Arsht Center. Somehow I missed Viva la Salsa at the Knight Center with Victor Manuelle, Oscar d’Leon, and Orquesta Guayacan. I also missed Los Fabulosos Cadillacs there. I missed Dick Gregory in West Palm Beach. I missed another entire season of Heat games, Canes games, Panther games, and the unforgettable World Baseball Classic during which Miami’s glorious Dominican community showed everyone what Marlins Park should and could be if only baseball figured something out.
In the same way, though I am not an urban planner, it takes no genius to imagine how much better NW 2nd Avenue would be if no cars were allowed between 20-29th Streets. There is no bigger no-brainer than this one. How can a 21st century city be so oblivious to the needs of its citizens, the needs of its pedestrians, and the benefits of foot traffic? Wynwood is now overrun with traffic, with tourists, with locals, with restaurants, and with business. If gentrification is progress, a newly unrecognizable neighborhood with designer donut shops and hip hop blaring beer gardens has become a magnet for floods of people who would never have visited unless they had made a wrong turn off of I95. So if Miami is going to keep 2nd Avenue from becoming Ocean Drive, someone had better figure out how to keep creative local artists and entrepreneurs in the neighborhood. If not, Zak the Baker, Panther, and BXLDR will be devoting all their time and energy to visitors with no skin in the game. Reroute the traffic — at least on weekends. Fill the street with bicycles and walkers.
On the other hand, I did not miss the great SMDCAC’s Backyard Beer & Music Fest with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band and the Meters playing the Cissy Strut. I did not miss Wim Wender’s Buena Vista Social Club being screened at the Coral Gables Art Cinema in its wonderful Special Engagement series. I did not miss Richard Gere in the Miami Film Festival’s chaotic opening night showing of an unexpectedly perceptive Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer at the drop dead gorgeous Olympia Theater. I did not miss the festive Celia Cruz tribute at Ball & Chain. I did not miss getting in touch with my inner sangfroid on a nice, late March afternoon listening to hip hop in Garden Food and Bar away from the Wynwood madness. I did not miss Elastic Bond and Palo! at the little Underline concert in the cramped space beneath the Metrorail Station in the oppressively overdeveloped, weirdly shiny Brickell. I did not miss the miserable, repetitive techno blaring from the roof of the Langford and the tiresome electronic deejay at Baby Jane, both of which seem to seek Ibiza as a model. (Both also kept me from staying and eating, but the profit’s in the liquid right?)
So now, spring has sprung as April showers bring May flowers and a lil something for everyone – no kidding! Jay Leno, Chainsmokers, Ariana Grande, Chris Brown, 50 Cent, Panic! At the Disco, Gilberto Santa Rosa, Neil Diamond, Matilda, our Gay Pride Festival, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers will all soon surface. O, Miami Poetry Festival continues all month.
And if you are looking for something different? The Miami Dade County Fair and Exposition rolls on through mid-month, the Longines Global Champions Tour will entertain you horse jumping fanatics from April 13-15, and not to be undone, the Miami International Agricultural, Horse and Cattle Show will take place in Tropical Park from 14-16.
Finally, for those of you afraid to go out in this once more seemingly crazy world, I recommend you seek comfort with Oscar nominee April Love, starring Pat Boone and Shirley Jones, which has been making America great since 1957.
