THE SOUTH BEACH HERALD

BREAKING NEWS ABOUT THE IMPORTANT MEETING HELD AT SMITH & WOLLENSKY REGARDING MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND

May 11, 2012 By David Arthur Walters I was one of the lucky outsiders to be invited to a Miami Beach Police Department presentation of a community defense strategy hosted by Smith & Wollensky, a high class restaurant situated on Government Cut in South Pointe Park in the upscale South of Fifth Street Neighborhood. The Important Meeting Regarding Memorial Day Weekend was sponsored by Carla Probus and Stacey Kruger, prominent South of Fifth canine club enthusiasts, socialites well known for their association with the Miami Beach political elite and their sponsorship of Meet & Greets. If the truth be told, time flies so fast in South Beach that nothing really seems to happen except Memorial Day Weekend, which in South Beach has little to do with remembering the sacrifices
Page 1 of 8

THE SOUTH BEACH HERALD

our civil warriors made for our freedom from slavery, but is about hundreds of thousands of freed black folk swarming to the beach over the holiday weekend to celebrate their brand of American culture. That culture is said to be urban, therefore promoters dubbed the event Urban Week, a misnomer if not an euphemism, for urban areas do not have one-hundred percent black populations that like to cruise around drinking from red disposable cups while listening to hiphop music, not that there is anything inherently wrong with birds of a feather flocking together. The participants themselves called it Black Week to begin with, a more apt choice of words. Whatever it is called, it is what South Beach residents worry about year round no matter what color they are. Yes, how time flies! It seems like it was just yesterday when cops put a hundred or so bullets into a man who had shot someone in the head during a filling station robbery upstate. He drove down to South Beach in a stolen car for the Memorial Day Weekend, panicked when he saw cops approaching, and proceeded to ram a few of them with the car. The car was surrounded at the corner where it came to a halt, and he was summarily liquidated in Bonnie and Clyde fashion. A video of the thrilling episode was posted on the Internet. Thousands of bored people loved the unplanned reality show. A witness said the culprit had taken pot shots at cops. People were wounded by friendly fire. The cops found a gun in the car a few days later, but that did not matter much to South Beach residents. Of course the deceased was not truly representative of the swarmlet not a bad apple the reputation of the bushel ruin. Actually, Urban Week is not so freaky if you do not mind the madness of crowds. Never mind the misconduct of the fringe element: the shootings, the noise, the defecating on tables, urinating in the middle of the street, stuff like that. Never mind the stampede when a plastic alligator pops out of a box and people run for their lives, trashing the sidewalk cafes and neglecting to pay their bills. Of course the climate of callous disrespect for the hapless residents of chic South Beach, who are converted annually into unwilling hosts, can be somewhat disconcerting. I love people in the abstract but I hate crowds, period, whether they are worshipping their color or a football. Crowds drive me mad so I skirt them when I can. I grew up in an un-crowded free state whose state bird flies backwards without fear of running into much. I ran with the Mexican boys who lived in tarpaper shacks down by the tracks. There were very few black residents. Sometimes I stayed overnight with a black couple who drank whisky in their orange juice. I turned thirteen and ran off to the city, where there were so many races around that race became boring. Oh, there were racists both real and virtual: a notorious Black Panther once invited me to dine with his family. I listened to Ice-T when I got uptight with the crowd; his music relaxed me, especially the one about the KKK girl, the Southern sheriffs daughter. So there, that goes to show that I am not a racist, at least I was not one until I experienced Black Week in South Beach. And now I am only a racist for a weekend, and a mere armchair racist at that, limited to pronouncing the n-word to an appreciative friend of mine who grew up in the Deep South. She noticed a lot of miscegenation going on in her state, and says that many Southern belles will privately admit their apprehension that, Once you go black, you wont go back. Anyway, here come the Afro-Barbarians again. The cops are laying out a welcome mat for them. It is a safety mat. The crime rate will soar for the event because the minority of bad guys in the crowd will be arrested for every violation. The bad boys and gangstas, by the way, are mostly
Page 2 of 8

THE SOUTH BEACH HERALD

from Miami-Dade County and Broward County. Atlanta rid itself a similar swarming event, not with mass arrests but with massive towing. The Atlanta swarmers did not come backthey swarmed to South Beach. I had finished my laundry as usual on Friday morning, at the ghetto laundry on Sixth Street, and hurried down Washington Avenue towards Smith & Wollenskys for the Important Meeting, slightly annoyed again by the misspelling of point. I recalled that, just last Sunday, during my usual stroll through South Pointe, I overheard two ladies, as they exited the fabulous Continuum condominiums, where they no doubt have multimillion-dollar apartments with thousands of square feet, discussing Wollenskys: I was mortified by the delay in ordering dinner at Wollenskys, one lady said. Elizabeth was pretending she had never seen the menu! Good grief! exclaimed her friend. I thought, How nice to be rich, and speculated on where they got their wealth. Maybe their husbands stole it, I thought, but that is not their fault as long as they were kept in the dark. Maybe they are highly paid professionals. Who cares? Is not man therefore business inherently corrupt? If only everyone could overcharge everyone, we would all be rich. As for me, I am not the least envious of their dinners at Wollenskys and their highlife in the Continuum high rises. You see, whereas Franciscans love Lady Poverty for Gods sake, I am voluntarily impoverished so I can be an independent thinker and author. Or rather, I am poor because I live a mental life and paid scant attention to material things unless I was assisting businessmen for a modest fee of $50 an hour. I must not be ashamed of being poor in possessions, for I am in agreement with Plutarchs statement, in his life of Aristides, that the only people who should be ashamed of poverty are those who are poor against their will. Most of us tend to settle into the stations we grow comfortable with. The only thing I am ashamed of is my alley-furnished living quarters, and then only when I want to invite someone over. It is only then that I look around and am disgusted by what would be a well-off persons perspective on my writers hovel. In fact, I fancy living at least one year in a nice apartment before I die, maybe in the South of Fifth Neighborhood, or on West Avenue, which reminds me of the West Side when it was invaded by Yuppies. Or maybe 1500 Ocean Drive would have me! I would want to have guests over from time to time, sending a limo to pick up old friends at the airport for whom I have purchased round trip tickets. I am not anti-social but am a bit of a loner, so the grand apartment would have to have a little studio I could retire to as my friends enjoyed the digs. I might even write a breaking news book on my experiences there, myself naturally being the central event, and submit the book to the owner as rent. Finally, there I was, at Smith & Wollenskys, for the Important Meeting, dying to have some free coffee and pastries. I happen to write restaurant reviews from time to time, but nothing about the likes of Smith & Wollensky. I do not have a publisher to pay for food and beverage, wherefore my reviews are limited to fast food joints. At least they are truthful reviews; for example, my review entitled The Pickle Chiseler, about the guy who tried to charge me fifty cents for relish to put on the cold hotdog served on a stale bun at an Ocean Drive deli.

Page 3 of 8

THE SOUTH BEACH HERALD

Commissioner Deede Weithorn, Police Chief Raymond Martinez and other police officers were guest speakers at the Important Meeting Regarding Memorial Day Weekend. Ms. Weithorn along with Commissioner Jonas Wolfson had spearheaded a successful effort to rid the city of its longtime autocratic manager, Boss Jorge Gonzalez. He had gotten too big for his britches and had to be ostracized in Greek fashion. Ostracism was not necessarily a punishment for wrongdoing, but was a method of appeasing peoples jealousy of arrogant people. Plutarch gives us a good description of the ancient process: Each voter took an ostrakon, or piece of earthenware, wrote on it the name of the citizen he wished to be banished and carried it to the part of the marketplace which was fenced off with a circular paling. Then the archons first counted the total number of votes cast, for if there were less than six thousand, the ostracism was void. After this they sorted the votes and the man who had the most recorded against his name was proclaimed to be exiled for ten years, with the right, however, to receive the income from his estate. Ms. Weithorn said she had also won a bout against cancer, and noticed that having a positive or negative attitude has little to do with whether one survives or not. I believe the point is to get on with what must be done regardless of what happened. It is time to leave the past in the dust and get on with the future. I add that one can live in the now, as tomatoes do best. The commissioner looked remarkably well. During her recent campaign, she told me she had lost a lot of weight, and that there was a rumor bandied about that she was dying. When I said that I had never perceived her as fat, she said dresses can conceal the burgeoning issue. It did not occur to me at the time that she actually had cancer. I figured the rumor of her impending death was just another instance of dirty political campaigning, implying that we should not waste our vote on someone who will die in office. In retrospect, she was not dying: she was living. There was nothing new about the policing plan presented by the Miami Beach Police Department except that the presentation was smoother than ever. It had been vaunted and discussed around town for some time. But I had decided to attend the meeting because I had never laid foot inside of that expensive restaurant. Most importantly, free coffee and pastries were advertized. Further, a stroll in the South of Fifth enclave would make me feel well off. That alone would be the breaking news from my perspective, a perspective influenced by living in the South Beach ghetto just North of Fifth Street, an area on the butt end of the Flamingo Park Neighborhood recently dubbed The Toilet because of the dog waste and sometimes human waste found all over the sidewalks and curbs. We have only one luxury condo in our hood, on the corner of Euclid Avenue and Seventh Street. Prices are cheap, around a million dollars, and I highly recommend buying one if you have that kind of cash or credit. Mind you that my hood is only relatively bad, compared to South of Fifth. A detective reminded me that people all over the world would love to live in my hood. I am not that surprised, since over half the people of the world do not even have potable water. Life is good on the beach. I used to laugh when people told me that life in Miami Beach is stressful given its proximity to Miami. Quite to the contrary, not until one stays long enough to go mad, then you would not know it because you would be too busy picking up trash, scraping stickers off light poles, and panhandling when not sleeping in doorways. If you prefer housing, gargle with booze and smash the bottle up against the I Love Liquor store window. When the cops arrive, tell them you have a drinking problem and need rehab. Or you can walk into the
Page 4 of 8

THE SOUTH BEACH HERALD

Bank of America on Washington Avenue in broad daylight, put your hand in a paper bag and demand money, then run towards the police station, where you will be arrested, and if you are incoherent enough, Baker Acted. Everyone got a little colored map entitled Memorial Day Weekend Traffic Plan. It looked very much like Manhattan on a New York City subway map. The cops did a good job of describing the plan. The more times they describe it, the better they get. There is the traffic loop, the observation towers, the checkpoints for drugs, guns, drunk drivers, and, we might hope, for Molotov cocktails. And there are cameras recording every tag to get almost instant feedback so stolen cars and wanted criminals can be seized. And so on and so forth. By the way, every little ordinance will be enforced. The welcome mat is being publicized only to keep the tiny minority who prey on fun-loving swarmers away. I opined to a fellow at my table that the publicized plan will be perceived as a challenge to black integrity: Many people will come wearing handcuffs as bling. Jesse Jackson might have to bail Al Sharpton out of jail. Do you remember what Sharpton said when confronted with the fact that the prosecutors did not rape Tawana Brawley? No. He said that was not the point. A similar point might be made in South Beach. I was tempted to ask the speaker at the time, a SWAT officer, how effectively the fire and police departments might respond to a riot where our historical Art Deco buildings were being torched by a crowd incensed by the spectacular display of police power. The question if posed would have been inappropriate, so I kept my mouth shut. There were a few black people attending the presentation. I noticed that they were all relatively young, well dressed, and attractive, especially Cory, the citys sidewalk caf coordinator. No news there: almost everyone has already observed from time to time that black can be at least as beautiful if not more beautiful than white even after white is deeply tanned. Cory said the sidewalk cafes would not be closed down for Memorial Day Weekend because the owners wanted the money. She said she could relay objections to city officials, but she was powerless as a coordinator to change anything. She was congratulated for her honesty. A bold gentleman, no doubt descended from an earl of old, offered that it was absurd to address a sociological problem with a traffic plan. I cannot remember the analogy he used because it seemed false to me. I think he meant that using a monkey wrench on a barrel of monkeys would not make them behave. Another South of Fifth resident chimed in, to say he had only one hip hop CD, and that the gist of the problem with Urban Week is that we expect the barbarians to behave as we do. Well, that liberal honky made a good point, but it has been made so many times that it is no longer news. Liberality including tolerance has been a virtue for gentlemen ever since Aristotle penned his Ethics. Culture is bottom-up today, not top-down. Heck, todays WASPs imitate hip hop culture and make tons of money off it, having already made trillions off Blues, jazz and rock. People will revise their ethical codes and do anything for money and power. For example, even arch-conservatives are coming out for gay marriage nowadays.
Page 5 of 8

THE SOUTH BEACH HERALD

Swarms attract predators and parasites who conceal themselves in crowds to prey on fellow creatures. In my opinion, addressing sociological issues associated with human swarming with a mechanical plan designed to prevent chaos and thwart crime is an appropriate sociological response to a sociological problem. Not that it will work, but let us give it a whirl and see what happens. If the crowd itself instead of a few miscreants is maddening, human nature may be the problem we shall all have to personally deal with. Another liberal-minded, well-heeled gentleman worried at length about the probability that privacy would be invaded by the automatic reading of all license tags and almost instantly matching the information with a national database. He thought doing that would make everyone suspect. Shades of Big Brother, you know. The surveillance system is already up and running, the SWAT officer had said, and will be pass after Memorial Day. I suppose anyone who moves to South Beach, where so many are on the make or on the take, should be suspected of something or the other besides being an illegal alien, so s/he should stay under the radar. I thought the liberal fellow might have a warrant out on him, or perhaps should be honored with one. I am not wanted for anything at all at this time, but if I were, I do not have a car, having burned my drivers license in 86 two guys from Miami offered me a job driving a getaway car when I was broke, but I declined on the basis that I have no license. I guess I would be safe in a police state as long as I minded my own business, did not criticize the government, or try to take pictures of cops filling up a car with lead, or let anyone know about some of my ancestors. A fellow feared that the South of Fifth neighborhood would not get the protection it deserved, given the restaurants that have invaded the area, resulting in some of the late-night insults common to the rest of South Beachs Entertainment District. In any event, he believed that his own neighborhood does not get its fair share of services in return for its tax revenue. That belief did not jibe with my historical perspective on his hood, which used to be a drugridden, cockroach-infested ghetto but became inordinately gentrified thanks in part to a program that allowed taxes collected in the area to be devoted to it. Indeed, some old-timers view South of Fifth residents as tax hogs, as nouveau-riche neo-barbarians who have successfully pushed lower and middle class people out. So far I know only one couple who lives there, and they are pretty cool, even a little weird if you know what I mean. I asked them if they knew of any apartments for rent, and they said some were available in their building at a reasonable rate. They sold their house when the market tipped, are paying $8,500 a month rent for their apartment, but a smaller unit on a lower floor can be had for $6,000. Would I like to have the name of the realtor? Commissioner Weithorn responded to the objection that South of Fifth people were not getting their fair share, stating that every neighborhood felt it was being slighted in one way or another, and left it at that without taking sides. Leave it to a politician. The SWAT officer said the area will have sufficient coverage for the Memorial Day Weekend. Ms. Weithorn, a certified public accountant who relishes public budgets, observed that there is no fiscal gain in the Memorial Day Weekend. The security plan for the weekend will cost the city roughly $2 million. It is not a city-sponsored affair, so no additional revenues are collected.

Page 6 of 8

THE SOUTH BEACH HERALD

Taxes are collected year around, and it is impossible to accurately associate increases with special events, especially when revenue is up on the whole due to the improving economy. She did not remark on whether or not there is an economic gain after the fiscal result. Hotel business booms, some luxury hotels renting out each room to a half-dozen or more swarmers. A lot of pizza is sold; and chicken wings too, not to mention beer. Still, many restaurants close in anticipation of trouble. We were asked to applaud Wollenskys for hosting the police presentation of the Memorial Day plan, which brings me to the most important part of my breaking newsI did not go to journalism school, so please excuse me for not putting it at the top to the news as if it were the apex of a pyramid. I did not get any coffee because they ran out of cups. Some people were wiping out dirty cups with napkins and reusing them. A genius sitting at my table got himself a plastic water glass and filled it with coffee. The pastries were dried out, maybe more than a day old. The bagels were all right, doughy and chewy enough, but nothing to write home to Brooklyn about. The scene, a long banquet hall on the east side of the building, was brilliantly illuminated by sunshine that morning, the windows themselves countenancing a serene view of the park. And what is not to like about linen and silverware, the very things I watched poor ladies steal, along with salt and pepper shakers and glasses, from restaurants when I was a little boy? Furthermore, I was irked when I heard from a neighbor that Ms. Probus and Dr. Kruger had to pay for the refreshments even though they could well afford them. I imagined that such an upscale restaurant establishment would be wise to promote its food by giving some away, and should foot the bill since the event honored the police power concerned with upholding the law and order especially favored by its high-end clientele. Finally, it was angrily noted that nary a single city official had shown up for the meeting besides police officers, as if residents were being punished for dumping the city manager. Savvy business people say the change will not mean much unless the top two or three people in each city department are sacked, so the officials may now resent the people they are supposed to serve. That did not make sense to me, unless the so-called Old Cronies are blockheads. Smart officials would want to show up at such meetings to save themselves. I was one who felt that the city manager should have been allowed to stick around for a year more to save face with feet held to the fire. The Miami Beach Police Department has bent over backwards to please people after it was pilloried by the press recently. It is the most responsive of all city departments by nature, and even the more so after being roasted. Residents said they were afraid to complain about officials. But there would be no civilization without complaints. Perhaps Miami Beach is becoming more civilized now that the wildcat is out of the bag. At least someone from Code Enforcement, which is not part of the police department, would want to show up for community meetings such as the one at Smith & Wollenskys. Compliance officers are rightly derogated for what they do not do, for taking bribes, and for selective or random enforcement, but they are unappreciated for what they have done very well. They are heavily involved in the annual Urban Week fiascos. Ms. Weithorn expressed their importance, and said she once rode around with their bicycle team.
Page 7 of 8

THE SOUTH BEACH HERALD

I called Compliance Division Supervisor George Castell. He said he knew nothing about the meeting. Commissioner Weithorn said she coordinated the event with the Miami Beach Police Department, posted the event with the City Clerks office as a city meeting. She said the sidewalk caf coordinator showed up, that Code Compliance Director Robert Santos-Aborna was ill, and that no one else reached out to her. Frank Del Vechhio, the South of Fifth activist who organized and coordinated the well attended public protests against the Gonzalez Administration, said that he circulated Ms. Weithorns notice of the meeting to his list, but he understood that only Ms. Weithorn and the police officers were directly invited. Capt. Mark Causey, chief of the Entertainment District, had also circulated the invitation, but his list includes only South Beach residents. Those who did not attend did not miss much if they read this news about the Smith & Wollensky Important Meeting Regarding Memorial Day Weekend meeting. If they had attended, they would admit that there was nothing exceedingly newsworthy about it notwithstanding the exception of this momentous news report, which I outline over a free cup of joe at Joes Take Out, the manager taking pity on me when I told her I could not get one at Smith & Wollensky. Maybe there will be such a thing as a free lunch someday, O Lord, a good subject for the Blues. ## AFTERWORD The all-white readers focus group that previewed this coverage of the Important Meeting Regarding Memorial Day Weekend found certain parts of my breaking news somewhat funny if not absolutely hysterical. Nonetheless, they were also appalled, even wincing when they felt black people were being ridiculed. I had to remind them that I laugh at people equally, regardless of their color, and that my pants-pulled-down references to black folk are subtle jokes on white folk.

Page 8 of 8