Why it's annoying to watch CSI Miami

Okay. So, I'll hand it to Miami Vice. That was an awesome show. And it didn't feel like they were trying to fold in "Miami" things every other sentence. It all seemed to be flimed down here... (well, most of it, anyway, and everything that I don't notice, I chalk up to time changing and that building being knocked down or changed...hell in the beginning of Ace Ventura, they show The Tides Hotel, and the place looks like a shithole and that was 1993...) and it was cool.

CSI Miami -- I've seen it twice, and it's really annoying to watch. First off, they'll cut to shots of things that ARE down here, and then there'll be a shootout on a street lined with Oak trees, and you can see the exhaust coming out of cars' tailpipes, and people's breath.

Guess what? That NEVER happens. We don't have Oak trees, and we don't have visible breath down here. They'll fly above South Beach and then have something happening "downtown," which I guess is hard to do in Miami, because we don't really have a "downtown, downtown." We have Brickell, which is about a seven-block stretch of "Biscayne Boulevard" (Rt. 1 to all you Northerners) stacked one-block-deep of office buildings, and then we have "downtown" which is like... I'd say AT ABSOLUTE MOST 7 square blocks of downtown. And most of those blocks are taken up with odd malls full of roaches and Moneygram stores, and loud, bright storefronts selling hot electronics and perfume. Oh, yeah. We also have bums and nowadays, gaping holes where they're throwing up yet anoter 70-story condo building, for Latin American drug money to hide.

In the five minutes I watched today, David Caruso was trying to find an apartment for some chick who I guess he knocked up or something. The realtor, who was sitting in a dark, CAVERNOUS lobby, probably in "Espiritu Santo" Plaza, told her that he had two properties for her: One property was in Hialeah, and the other property was "two blocks from the Lowe Art Museum." Let's start with the latter, shall we? I live two blocks from the Lowe Art Museum. And let me tell you: 1) It's not an art museum. It's the University of Miami's art museum, on the UM campus. That's not a real museum... The Elvejehm was more of a museum than the odd little circular building we have on campus, next to the health center. It's in Coral Gables. And NO ONE...would EVER in a MILLION YEARS care that a place was "two blocks from the Lowe Art Museum." Stupid reference number one. Not to mention the dissonance that arises from offering a property in Coral Gables, versus Hia-leeeeee-ahhhhh 2) The other property was in Hialeah? Christ. Why would someone SAY that!? I'd think they'd do anything they could to avoid saying Hialeah... I'd imagine the realtor would say, "It's adjacent to Doral." Or "It's near Miami Gardens." Or, "In an industrial park adjacent to an exit onto 'the' 826." (We don't call roads down here just the number, we add "the" in front of it. At home, we say, "Take 32, till you get to 95 or 29, then go South, and hit D.C." Here we say, "Take the 826 north until you get to the 836, then sit in inexplicable traffic for half an hour, and then go west till you hit the Turnpike." It's annoying.) I can't imagine that pushing a place in the neighborhood with the most "illegal-add-on-apartments in all of America" would be a high selling point. If anyone ever said, "I have a lovely one bedroom in Hialeah," I think I'd laugh in their face as I turned and walked out the door.

I've been to Hi-a-leeeee-ahhhh (I can't pronounce it not like that.) It's... not nice.

The show I saw was about a bank robbery. As everyone is standing around this crime scene, in trenchcoats, their breath visible in the chilly Miami morning air, the Oak and Beech trees lining the street were just beginning to pick up the faintest hint of autumn, their leaves taking on just the faintest hint of rich, robust reds and golds.

Of course, if it were really an October morning in Miami, what you'd have is everyone sweating their asses off, in the blazing and unmerciful sun muttering about yet another hurricane veering towards us, as empanadas and pastelitos flew off the shelves and coladas were un-rushedly sipped, their drinkers shuffling slowly off to work, groaning about the fact that they had to be at their desks by the ungodly hour of 9:45 a.m...

If the gnarled stumps of greenery that we have along the streets were changing color at all, it would probably because of all of the smack and booze the trees were fed, through the generous urine streams of all of our fair city's homeless and crack-whore contingent. (Can you tell that I hate it here?!)

Anyway, while they're all standing around around being chilly, some chick goes, "Which bank got robbed?" And David Caruso (who's looking VERY. OLD.) replies, "Dade Mutual. On Flagler."

Oh, good reference, guys. The Dade Mutual Bank, on Flagler. I think there's the Dade Mutual Bank building on Flagler street, but I'm also pretty sure it hasn't been a bank since, oh, 1957. But no big deal.

On Flagler.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh. THAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT Dade Mutual Bank! I thought you meant the one On Collins. Or the one On Coral Way. Or maybe you meant the one that's on Calle Ocho. Yup. We've run out of streets with names. I guess if there were any others, you'd have to say, "The Dade Mutual Bank at 13689 N.W. 42nd Ave." Or, "The Dade Mutual Bank at 5643 S.W. 38th Street."

Idiots.

Now, I know that people outside Miami don't know that these shows are completely laughable and annoying those of us who live here, but couldn't they even TRY to make it believable to those people who live here? Autumnal leaves and breath? The Lowe Art Museum? Hialeah? Cut me a friggin' break.