Random Night at Arkadia During Basel Week

By Victor Gonzalez Sat., Dec. 4 2010 at 10:00 AM

Categories: Last Night

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Sunny Singh likes to bang on the drum all day.

The beauty of Art Basel week is the spontaneity of it. One minute you can be having tempura eggplant before a special indie-pop DJ set at Bardot, then all of a sudden you're in a Haitian man's cab listening to Creole talk-radio en route to the Fontainebleau. At least that's how our Basel Friday went down.

Admittedly, we don't spend much time on the beach; it's not really our scene. In fact, besides concerts at the Fillmore, we try and avoid the place all together. But on one--or four--too many gin and tonics, we'll do a lot of crazy shit; hence Arkadia last night.

Like any club on the beach, Arkadia has a strict door policy. Luckily, Vitamin C Communications' Javi Zayas vouched for us and got us on the list. However, getting inside was still an issue because we'd left our driver's license at, um...actually, we have no idea where we left it. And evidently, a grizzly beard and a New Times press pass doesn't prove we're old enough to drink. It took a little sweet-talking, maybe 20-minutes worth, but it finally happened, and they let us in.

We almost fell down the stairs leading into Arkadia, but managed to find our balance with the help of a friend's shoulder. Inside, the DJ kept it beachy with electro lounge beats, and a cool cat named Sunny Singh wore a drum around his neck and played along with the music. Though most tables were reserved for bottle service, we found an empty one near the DJ booth.

For a moment we considered pooling our money together and living it up baller style with a $40,000 bottle of something we couldn't pronounce. But when we added it all up, we were about $39,864 short. Naturally we bought drinks at the bar instead.

As the night progressed, the crowd grew larger, and we met an androgynous couple dressed in futuristic Black Eyed Peas-like regalia. Besides them and a few middle-aged dudes with kooky eyeglasses and their "dates," Arkadia didn't feel too Basely.

Our first time at Arkadia last night was likely our last. Not so much because we hated it--we didn't--but because we've reached a point in our lives where bars are better than nightclubs, and day drinking's more appealing than late night/early morning drunken debauchery, and maybe better even on our liver. Nevertheless, it was a fun Miami night, bro.