It’s not too often that a South Florida blog gets mentioned in the New York Times blog, which is maintained by the paper’s metro reporters.
But it’s not too often that a South Florida blog writes about an upcoming New York event either
Monday morning, a few hours after I had posted the article about a group of M.I.T. students who were organizing a flash mob in New York City, I started averaging more than 130 page views per hour on that single post, which is considerably higher than normal.
That is when I realized the post had been linked at the top of the New York Times‘ City Room page, the first among 12 items that were gathered from various blogs and Websites, mostly from the New York area.
The post also made another popular New York blog called Brooklyn Vegan where a guy named a “Manhattan not Brooklyn Asshole” stated the following:
WHY OH WHY do you post info like that Mr Vegan. That flash mob shit is the stupidest fucking thing going. And this one is even dumber. These idiots want to get on the #2 Train at Grand Central. Good luck finding it ya dumbasses.
In which a poster writing under “anonymous” responded with the following:
asshole not only sounds like a real asshole, he sounds like a real stick in the mud too!
Yes, the M.I.T. students posted the wrong train number, but that was quickly remedied on this blog.
Despite the heavy traffic, not a single person showed up to the flash mob, according to a Twitter posting on This American Summer, the Website in which the M.I.T. students are documenting their adventures as they travel around the country interviewing various Americans for a school project.
The students, Alexander Guerra, David Sheets, and Danbee Kim, didn’t seem too bothered about the no-shows because three hours later, they announced through Twitter that they were “at Coney Island, eating hot dogs slathered in goodness.”
I met the trio of youngsters just over a week ago after they had emailed me about interviewing me for their project. They said they found my blog interesting. As a fellow traveler and activist, I couldn’t resist meeting some of my readers. I couldn’t resist representing my hometown for their project.
Like a good host, I took them to my favorite photo spot in Miami; Watson Island beneath the MacArthur Causeway where photographers, fisherman and homeless people have long coincided in peaceful bliss in front of a perfect view of the Miami skyline. They snapped a few photos of the skyline as I explained to them how the Bank of America building changes colors.
One of them asked me if had ever been harassed by police in that spot. I told them no, which is probably one reason why it’s my favorite spot.
Then I took them to Tobacco Road, the oldest bar in Miami, where everybody was carded except me. We spent the night listening to blues and exchanging travel stories as I took a few natural light photos in the darkness of Tobacco Road. They couldn’t get over the fact that Tobacco Road closed at 5 a.m.
Then they interviewed me on video outside Tobacco Road about my arrest. And then we went our separate ways.
The following day, they followed my advice and ate lunch at Versailles, which we all know is touristy, but it is something one must experience when coming to Miami.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t one of those days where Castro’s death was announced, so the most exciting part of the lunch for these Starbucks-bred kids was the 65-cent espresso.
