Matt Meltzer Says Adios, Miami. Hello Gainsville!

If you live in Miami long enough, you know that your time here is limited. This does not apply to everyone, obviously, as otherwise our population would be somewhere in the tens of thousands and getting home on the Palmetto would not be the medieval form of torture that it is. But in a city that lets you do pretty much whatever you want, whenever you want it becomes apparent that in order to get on, you have to get out.

Such is my case. If any of you have followed my writing, either on this site or on my old blog known as “White Dade,” you know I have this odd love-hate thing going on with Dade County. I love my life here, I love the weather, I love the fact that if I want to stay out until 8 in the morning, most nights I can. But I also know it is one of the hardest cities in America to call home, especially if you are not comfortable with Latin culture. Which I am not. The problem, of course, is that it is exactly that culture of permissiveness which grants me so many freedoms that also makes everyday life here so unbearable. Because if I can lie, cheat and steal my way through nine years in this place, so can the auto mechanics, the lawyers, the convenience store clerks and the insurance companies. Probably why we all depend so much on tourist dollars: They are too naïve to know not to give any of them to the crooks that populate this city. Myself included.

WHO KNEW WASTING TIME AT WORK WOULD BE SO PRODUCTIVE?

And so it was a year or so ago that I decided the time was right to go back to school. This was a decision born out of leaving my position as a gym manager, and realizing that working in fitness for me was kind of like becoming a waiter at your favorite restaurant: Once it becomes work, the enjoyment is completely lost. During my time at the gym, I had an unbelievable amount of free time (or so I thought, perhaps this is why I am no longer working there) so I started White Dade. The response, though not immediate, was phenomenal. My readership grew every day, my work was being linked by multiple national websites and I was getting praise from all sorts of people. None of whom were related to me.

After I left the gym I took a little trip to New York and met up with a friend of my mother’s who is an editor for several trade publications in the city. Recognizing good writing when she read it, she suggested I apply to the Columbia School of Journalism in order to utilize my talent in ways other than complaining about non-English speakers on the internet. And so it got me thinking: Why not? I mean, if I could get into that program, I’d be set for life. I could land a job anywhere. And if all else failed, I could always go back and get my MBA at FIU. Or, even worse, maybe even go to law school (aka the residual career path for the directionless).

Of course, for a guy with a GPA that wouldn’t impress anyone and exactly zero professional or academic experience in journalism, getting into Columbia was kind of a stretch. Or, as some may call it, a pipe dream. So I decided to apply a few other places as well, just in case. Among them were Northwestern, Missouri and the University of Florida right up the Turnpike in Gainesville. I signed up for the GRE’s, moved to Little Havana and cut off my cable. I also took a bartending class so I could get a temporary job until I left for wherever it was I was going to make my next home.

IF THIS IS PURGATORY, I MAY JUST KEEP ON SINNING

It’s a funny thing…when life is a little tough, you look for a road out. I found that road and set out on it, but never realized how much fun that road would be. Shortly after I sent off my applications in January, this website contacted me asking if I’d like to write a guide to Spring Break for the upcoming deluge of drunk, horny college-aged tourists that were about to descend on our little slice of paradise. For it I would be paid. Well. And so my career in journalism, if you can call it that, began almost three years ahead of schedule.

The guide was such a success, the good folks here offered to let me stay on, getting paid to write about almost whatever I wanted, so long as it was Miami-related. In the meantime I found a bartending job that paid me $600-700 a night for one shift a week. Life, for all intents and purposes, was perfect. So why should I ever want to give it up? I was already getting paid to write, which was my ultimate goal, and at the same time I was making a bunch of cash and only having to go to work once a week.

WHEN YOU REALIZE YOU’LL ACTUALLY HAVE TO MOVE TO NEW YORK, IT ISN’T SO APPEALING

And then the acceptances started to come in. It hadn’t really occurred to me in that in my search to make my life better, I would make it so good I wouldn’t want to give it up. And so the acceptances, while wonderful to receive, were not so exciting as I had originally hoped. Florida was the first to accept me. Then Missouri. Then Arizona State. And then, two weeks before the deadline to register, Columbia. I had achieved my goal of getting in to, if not the top-rated, at least the most prestigious journalism program in the nation. Based pretty much on talent and knowledge. That, and I was the only applicant from the state of Florida.

But after visiting the hallowed halls in Harlem, I realized that nobody at Columbia looked happy. No one looked like they were having a good time or even excited about what they were doing. How they looked was stressed and miserable and angry, and I realized that it was not worth the $64,000 price tag to have an ivy-league Masters Degree, especially if I was going to be miserable while doing it. And so I decided that the next two years of my life would be spent in the swamp that is Gainesville.

I spent July traveling, visiting all my family and friends around the country I wouldn’t see for a while. I came back to Miami, went out to the Grove, played in my last softball game, and said goodbye to all the people to whom I needed to say goodbye. The frustrations of Dade were far behind me. No more traffic, no more perpetual road construction, no more massive miscommunication, no more horrendous customer service.

It is an interesting time to say the least. I haven’t moved somewhere that I didn’t know a lot of people in a long time. But this is the dawning of a new era for me, one that actually points me in some sort of direction rather than just floating along the waves crashing into South Beach. I realize the first few months will be tough. I have to figure out my routines, my budget, my social life. But I am confident that after two years this will have been the right choice for me, as you can only cruise along for so long before people start to say “Are you planning to actually DO anything with your life?”

TRADING LANGUAGE FOR LAX

I have already realized that Gainesville is not Miami. Not even close. My first day here I went into CVS looking for a tape measure, and not only did the person behind the counter know what I was talking about but took me to three different parts of the store before we found one. I have had friendly interactions with employees in grocery stores, restaurants and coffee shops, something you don’t get much in Dade if you don’t speak Spanish. And, for the most part, people here seem to like where they live. That is all well and good, but there are a lot of rules I like to skirt that, for some reason, the folks here in Gainesville like to enforce.

My first night out, for example, I left a string of bars across the street from campus to be greeted by at least a dozen police cars scoping out drunk drivers. This is a marked departure from the City of Miami cops who sit at New York Roma Pizza in the Grove and watch me stumble into my car night after night after night. And when leaving a bar I am not greeted with a plastic to-go cup as I am in Miami, but rather with a stern “You better throw that out before you go!” Apparently some cities frown upon folks walking down the street with an open beer. I have no idea why. Jaywalking is apparently actually ticketed here. I got busted for a parking violation nobody in Miami ever bothered to check in five years, yet somehow a Gainesville cop found the time to research it enough to give me not one but two tickets. Thank God they’re only 7 dollars.

Unlike Miami, there is not a burgeoning service and hospitality industry that offers bartending opportunities literally around every corner. Quite the contrary. Despite being a college town, the numbers of jobs in bars are extremely limited and hard to come by. Much like Gator season tickets, you typically have to know someone on the inside or have them willed to you, neither of which bode well for a guy new in town. There is only one of most major stores, so if Best Buy is out of the TV you’re looking for, you can’t go to the one across town and pick it up. And, oh yeah, there are 50,000 people descending on this city at the same time every August, all of them needing the same 15 items at Target. Good luck with that one. This, my friends, is definitely NOT Miami.

But don’t worry, folks, Even though I ended “White Dade” a long time ago I will continue on this site for as long as I can. After all, I’m a college student now so I need to make money wherever I can. And, of course, I do it for the love. I’m not going to go on and on about Gainesville, after all the name of the site isn’t “gainesville411.com” But I’m sure there will be an occasional reference.  You can still look forward to movie reviews, true crime stories, and guides to places and things I will never forget from my time in South Florida. And while I will always miss the place, at least writing for this site keeps me a little bit connected. After all, it’s a Hell of a lot easier than a five-hour drive.

Related Categories: Miscellaneous, About the Author: Matt Meltzer is a featured columnist at Miami Beach 411. See more articles by Matt Meltzer. See more articles by Matt Meltzer Was This Post Helpful? Please Share It With Others! Tweet

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