Okay, so while the club Space is but a shell of its former glory (the upstairs balcony now sealed off to form another club within a club, and the rooftop dance floor covered by a—get this—cloud-streaked scrim, as if the real thing, the real Miami sky weren’t good enough?)—none of those ill-conceived modifications made a bit of difference on Friday night for the Winter Party Festival’s Uniform Party.

Of course, it was one of those nights that happen only every fourth year—which might have had something to do with the traffic nightmares that had cabs and limos detouring to Sheboygan and Dubuque to get across the causeway into Miami. Leap year, that is—and there were terrible accidents around the city, and maybe a heightened awareness of our own precarious states made us all the more grateful to, finally, be able to walk into that cavernous space—and find it packed to the armpits with all our favorite people.

In general, the club mirrored the external traffic situation, but fortunately for us, we were all stumbling around on our own two feet (and not behind the wheel of a two-ton guzzler, thank you much) and into the arms of boxers and wrestlers, dominatrix and sailors. It was a Uniform Party, after all, and there were even baseball players on steroids—oh, my! (Apparently, something of a scandal for the rest of the nation. Copycats. We were there first.) And with décor by Visual XS Designs, in a kind of galaxy-blast big bang, disorientation was assured.

There was also the fact of it being the 29th of February, which meant that b’day boyz such as MedEvent Christian were way younger even than they looked. Basically, they’re Peter Pans, eternally young—which actually is what’s known as the circuit boy syndrome—which, therefore, makes us all leap year babies! All of which perhaps added resonance to Brett’s re-working of “Make It Last.”

Then it was the Manny switchover, to “Jump”—and from all around the club, we could make faces we hadn’t seen since—well, maybe last year’s Winter Party. Michael Circuit Dancer, for example, came back to Winter Party, which was his very first circuit event, oh, these many years ago. Like the swallows at Capistrano, we return to the scene of our best feeding. And Holly, of course, that circuit diva extraordinaire who always seems as if she’s brought along an entourage of alter egos, changing them at will for the paparazzi who can’t get enough of her. And Chyna Girl and Alan T. in jaw-dropping outfits, which could only have been imagined while deep in the rabbit hole. It was a kind of old home night for the young at heart, with plenty of finger chickin lickin’.

Upstairs on the roof, under that cloud-scrim-covered sky, there were DJs Greg Drescher and Harmonix, plating Maya’s “First Time” and where everyone was in performance mode, the star of their own private catwalk

And yet the song of the night was Manny’s reworking of Abel’s “Besito,” as sung by that crazy Cuban she-wolf from the Fifties and Sixties, La Lupe. With her yiyiyi banshee shrieking lyrics, “Wait for me, baby. I’m coming, baby,” La Lupe, via Abel, and Manny, kept Space, and the boyz, on the brink of multiple and collective orgasm.

“Destination Unknown”?—well, not quite, because it was the first night of Winter Party Festival, and as La Lupe would say, “Wait for me, baby,” because everything was just up ahead.

 Best always,
Mark and Robert