Friday, May 18, 2007

im.a.im ini mi.a.mi



so now everybody, here is miami.
miami was great. even though i had no where to stay all 3 days i was down there, it made it all the better. i didnt "do" to much while i was down there, but what i did do was relax and take in everything i could. there are a lot of crazy people down there. as i was recording the crazy tourettes guy, one of the local girls even said to me, you must think miami is full of crazy people. i just told her i was from california, she said all this must be pretty normal then. i am going to post a bunch of the scenic pictures i took, and some not so scenic. then there are some pictures with a little bit of a story behind them. i will just try and give the short versions....




these pictures are of the biscayne bay. it is directly inland from miami beach, between miami and miami beach.





one thing i was anticipating during my trip was sleeping on the beach in miami. it was all that i could have hoped for. the weather was perfect, and luckily for me each night i stayed it didnt rain. well, rain at least during the night. the only problem was that there were like 20 to 25 mph winds. that is why i decided to block the wind with a shelter.





sleeping on the beach allowed me for the first time to watch a sunrise over the ocean. it was a beautiful sunrise, over a beautiful ocean. God knew what he was doing.




































i spent most of my mornings and mid-day on the beach. playing in the ocean, napping, walking the beach, just taking it all in.














































































as i was walking down the beach i stubbed my toe on a big rock. it was one of those things that you could only do by accident. you know, something that would just hurt too much to do on purpose, like stabbing your hand with a knife, or giving your tongue a papercut. it sucked walking around in sand for the rest of the day, then once i put my shoe back on, it made it even worse.



i also caught a fist. i thought that it might turn into a prince....er, a princess...




all it did was turn into SPEEDOMAN! sorry, it was just a random way was posting this picture. there were a bunch of interesting old dude doing it european style...



it was funny. there was a pelican sitting in the water and there was this sea gull that would leave him alone. it kept landing on top of the pelicans head, i think trying to sit down.



there was a drawback from playing on the beach all day. and that is a mad sunburn. the first day out i was able to leave my heavy backpack at hostels storage room, but of course i forgot my sunblock in the bag. so my first day i got burned very bad. that made the rest of my beach time less pleasant. dont get me wrong, i still loved being there, it was just that after the first day getting burned i then had to actually pay attention to what i was doing and how long i was in direct sunlight instead of doing what was most fun.











you cant see it too well here, but this is when i first saw myself in a mirror since i got out of the sun. my face looked pretty red, except for a sunglasses outline. the backs of my legs are also really bad....












okay. im sure you are all wondering about this picture. so am i actually. i was just walking down the "happening" outdoor mall and this "dude" came out to talk to me trying to get me to go to a show he was going to be doing. i think he called it the diva dwayne show, or something. i got to play one of my favorite characters, oblivious man. meaning i just act like i have no idea at all what is going on around me. after he talked to me for a little while, and i stood there staring blankly at him. i then pulled up my camera to take a picture of myself with him. he then said, you dont have to sneak a picture with the diva, all you have to do is ask. i said, what the heck, does it look like i am trying to be sneaky (the camera was in full view holding it up in front of me as i always do). but then one of the waitresses volunteered to take a picture for me. yeah, i tried for the cheesiest picture ever. i think he/she still beat me though....



as i was in miami, i met a lot of interesting people (as if diva dwayne was interesting enough). this first guy is chris michaels. hes a south african.




then there is paul. he is recently become homeless, and longly been a thief.


then there is this guy. he was schizophrenic. i sat next to him for a couple of hours as he would just randomly say things like, "have a nice day bud", "there you go bud", "ok ok ok, i dont agree with any authority, so i will just give it back to you", and "if thats true, im going to put you to sleep". these are actual quotes from him. i took out my journal and started writing down whatever he spit out. there was no one around him but me. who knows what was going through his head. later that night i also got some video of him. he is very short tempered and racist. sorry, i dont have a picture of him drinking....



there are long stories behind each of these people, so i will just try and highlight. chris was actually VERY intelligent. we ended up talking for like 2 hours. at first i was giving him a bunch of mallarky about whatever, thinking he was just a drunk, but then we started really talking. he actually graduated from boston university and majored in sociology. he said that he almost had his masters but was missing a few classes. i would believe it too, he sorted through all of the rubbish i was giving him and figured me out fairly well. it was a very enlightening experience and i actually learned a lot from him. he does the same kind of things with people that i do. i ramble though.
then there is paul. it had just finished POURING rain and i had taken refuge under and overhang trying to dry my stuff out a little. he sat down next to me and started talking. wow. some people just are way off track. we were just leisurely talking when a honda civic pulled up and parked on the street in front of us. two guys got out and walked into a store. paul then just broke from whatever we were talking about and went into how he really wanted to steal that car. he was DEAD serious to, now whether he would actually do it or not is a different story, he could have been a compulsive liar. he even went into detail of how he would do it and how easy it would be. citing numerous other times he had down it, as recently as two days prior. being me, of course, documented the whole thing with my video camera. theres more, but for a later time.
then there is the schitzo. i dont even know what to say. there is a bunch of things he would say that contradict each other, other things off the wall, and things that just make no sense what so ever. ask me later and i will tell you.



okay, back to what you are all here for....pictures.

these are just random picture i took around town.
i thought that this one was funny. naomi does not seem like she would know what is unique, exciting, and fascinating in the world of erotic art.


here is another picture of the r2d2 usps boxes. i heard that there were only a few hundred placed around the country. i have now found two of them....























another self portrait. via camera displaying image on plasma tv.





















well that is pretty much my trip to miami. there is quite a bit more, but this is already the longest blog i have done to date, so it will have to do.
this is me outside of the miami train station waiting for it to open. after leaving the downtown area, i arrived at around 4am. i ended up sleeping on a skinny metal bench. it was soooo uncomfortable. but i was exhausted so i still slept for about 2 hours until the station actually opened.























did you guys think that i forgot? nope, just wanted to end with a bang.
drum roll please......ta dah, crazy tourettes guy.
what to say. this guy just kept walking around yelling and cussing, sticking his hands down his pants, creepily looking and following girls that walked by. i guess if you had to find a plot in this little story, it would have to be that the guy locked his bike up to a pole and then couldnt find the key. he kept circling the area where i was standing going into starbucks, the apple store, and various restaurants i guess looking for his key. now you may say, he doesnt have tourettes, he is just upset that he couldnt get his bike unlocked. then i would have to say, nope the rants he would yell out couldnt have been farther from what a missing key would bring. the video on this one isnt the best, but is surely the funniest.




















well thats that. this post is really over now. i hope that everyone is enjoying reading this blog. getting these blogs into descent order and trying to make them interesting or humorous is very tedious. i have been working on this blog for almost 3 hours now, even with previously having gone through all the pictures i took to sort out the blog worthy. i hope that i didnt ramble too much.

i am currently in charlottesville, va, visiting jenny marquez. this is my last stop before i make the long journey home. but thats for next time.

until next blog.....

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Very nice. A whole side of Miami that you just don't get on TV. The sunrise pics actually look like those mass produced oil paintings. Midget