Miami is a vivid, colorful, and evocative municipality. It is also a perfect city with a blend of beauty and chaos. Our unfinished love story.
The juxtaposition of sunbeams over Biscayne Bay and the haunting scenes of dead Caribbean boat people washing ashore creates a powerful contrast. The experiences shared, from salsa dancing to covering news stories in a city of tension and unpredictability, show the diverse and dynamic nature of Miami.
My journey from Miami to New York and Los Angeles, and then back to New York, reflects a media career that has taken me to different corners of the nation, experiencing and witnessing a wide range of events and emotions. Miami holds a special place in my memories, as it was where I got married, and began my family my dear daughters Natasha and Sabrina were born there, an where I started my professional career and I encountered moments that shaped my perspective and skills as a journalist. In Miami, I am Roberto, in New York I am BoB, in LA it’s more like how am I doing?
The following storytelling exercise attempts to capture the essence of Miami's allure and complexity, hopefully making you the reader feel as if you are experiencing the city's vibrant energy and challenges.
In Spanish the word Mi signifies my, and the word Ami in French means friend. Put them together and we get My Friend.
Miami is an enchantress who lured me with hot and humid breath and moist lips. She coaxed me to the dance floor for salsa, merengue, or an arousing and salacious samba.
Not so fast, though. I received my first advanced university degree in Miami and began my professional career as a journalist there working as a general assignment street reporter.
The memories are of weird beauty, of sunbeams that made the Biscayne Bay waters sparkle like a plus carpet of precious gems while covering news stories that evolved into the surreal within the humid tranquil, and tropical heatwaves.
Sometimes these beautiful and bizarre scenery would blend like an avant-garde painting. Most often the sky was a baby blue while the world below was like the haunting view of the bottom of my shoe.
There were mornings when dead Caribbean boat people washed ashore into the talcum-like sandy beaches adjacent to the luxury high-rise buildings.
There were also naughty nights of racially filled combustion that lit up the skies with smoke and fire, as police arrived in riot gear into neighborhoods that evolved into an unsteady pulse of tension and terror, with breaking glass and the sounds of gunfire.
One night, the car I was driving was shot at and the bullet missed me hitting the rear of the passenger side of my newsgathering vehicle, Other days, hurricane-force winds sent palm tree fonds rolling across the street like tumbleweeds in a ghost town movie scene, while public safety first responders rushed to evacuate the elderly and informed living the danger zones.
For years, my job was to be an eyewitness observer of other people's pleasures and pains. I cut my news chops in Miami and then moved to New York and Lon Agles and now back in Gotham, the city that never sleeps.