Dreams of Palm Trees & Suntan Oil

Ahhhhh...a Saurday morning in December, watching the Ted Nugent guest apperance episode of Miami Vice — The Nuge was, of course, type-cast as a hit man — and pondering how nice it would be to be sitting at the News Cafe on SoBe, eating some exotic pastry and watching the temperature rise and all the Beautiful People stroll by. Back in the Drug Wars, when I was writing magazine articles out of the Miami War Zone, I stayed at the Waldorf Towers, a restored deco hotel just down Ocean Blvd. from the coffeehouse, along with obscure Brit rock groups and visiting bicycle racers.

A friend of mine and I were once given the keys to the wrong room at the Waldorf. We bopped up the stairs so he could see my neat corner room with a view of the sidewalk parade. I stick the key in, swing open the door — TA-DA! — and, ta-da, there's a man in a black suit and shades stacking banded $100 bills into a Zero Halliburton aluminum briefcase. In ultra-slow motion, he sets down a handful of bills and picks up a Glock 17 lying on the bed by the briefcase.

I remember my friend starting to say, "What the...!!!" I said, "Shut up." The Glock came up like an adder, stopping with the huge hole at the end of the barrel — and it was bigger than anything I've ever seen befolre or since — pointing at the center of my face from about six feet away. My friend started to say something again, and, again, I said, "Shut up."

"Good," Shades said, the Glock never wavering. "What do you see?"

"I see nothing," I said. "Nothing at all."

"Again," Shades said.

"I see nothing," I say. I can feel sweat pooling at the small of my back. "I say nothing."

There is a long moment where I study the rifling in the barrel of the Glock.

"Get the f$#% out of here," Shades says, without raising his voice. I grab my friend and tow him backwards out the door, never taking my eyes off the Glock.

We clear the door and are down the stairs quick like a bunny. "We gotta call the cops," my friend practically shouts. "For what?" I said. "We gotta go get a margarita." So we did.

And in other strange matters, this from AP, courtesy MSNBC:

MOUNT HOLLY, Ark. - A hunter suffered hypothermia and kidney damage after becoming entangled in his deer stand and dangling upside down 30 feet above the ground in sleet for 8½ hours.

You got to know there were some Far Side deer hanging around laughing. Well, Ted's dead now. Time to go shovel the 4-foot drift from in front of the garage! Lot to be said for Miami...