Okay, so it was business which put us back on the sandbar less than two weeks after WinterParty -- while all the rest of the CPI world was trekking to Manhattan for their annual Roseland convention -- and at first, we were disappointed to think about what we were missing back in Gotham, and especially Wednesday evening when we were wandering back to our condo from Sandwicherie -- and yet again, heckling from the cars on Fifth Street.

God, what is it about south Florida, we wondered. How is it we can live for years in Manhattan and not get verbally abused -- and then, within minutes of arriving in South Beach, the homophobes are venting their vitriol.

Still, there's so much to love about South Beach -- so we let it go. One exchange out of a hundred (given the course of a day or night), one asshole to a hundred good people -- why focus on the loser?

So we move on. It's Winter Music Conference week. There are parties everywhere. Music lovers galore. So they can't all be assholes, and at least some of them must be gay. So, once our business is completed, we dip our feet into the festivities.

Friday night: We hit the Playboy Pool party at the Raleigh. Just to see how WMC'ers do pool parties and how they compare to CPI pool parties. Here's what we discover:
1. Bacardi inflatables are everywhere -- same as us 2. no one's in the water -- not same as us 3. girls dance in the shallow end while balancing glasses of water on their heads -- this gets the photographers all excited 4. most people are prostrate on lounge chairs -- not same as us 5. the stage is empty -- hello? 6. the bar staff is the same as at WinterParty -- which maybe validates that story you heard from Winterparty about that asshole bartender (but very hot) who threatened a patron with a bottle for ogling his bod 7. the goodie bags are filled with Playboy magazine -- but no lube 8. the deejay does not seem to be a god -- hardly anyone notices him 9. the Bacardi drinks are coconut rum -- and free. 10. whatever drugs people are doing, it's obviously a soporific

So we book to the Shore Club for another pool party at SkyBar. Here the crowd is a little more upscale and the deejay tent is curtained in white muslin -- but again, no one's paying him any attention. Still the music is good and there are some people in the pool and some gay people about, having the best time, I might add -- and it's a lovely setting, that Shore Club, and now the sun is setting and everything looks good.

Then to the party at World Pie which is in the back garden and it's kind of fun -- but not as delicious as the pizza we eat in the front room.

End of Friday night because next day is ULTRA at Bayfront Park.

SATuRDAY: THe UlTRA FeSTIVaL: BayFronT PArk, MIAmI.

We don't entirely know what to expect, though we've read the ads. Dozens of deejays in at least ten tents and dance "clubs" on the bay with Miami's skyline as the backdrop. An all-day affair, with food, and drink, and music. The world's best deejays, according to the lit. Thousands of people. From noon on Saturday until one a.m. Sunday morn.

So we cab it off the sandbar. Bayfront Park is packed. Ravers. College kids. Hippies. Children, even. And gays, too. Yippee.

The entrance pat-down is thorough. The guy in front of us almost loses his cigars (cigars?). We almost lose our digital. Camera? the attendant asks. No, MP, we say. She nods. We get in -- with camera.

The music is pounding from all directions. It's a fairgrounds with the only ride being music. Huge tents and stages and light set-ups and there's a program with a map and a list of the about sixteen hundred deejays and we're completely befuddled and lost -- and it feels excellent. We just wander with the music, wherever we want.

Then it starts to rain and everyone runs to the nearest tent -- and it's a veritable hurricane and everyone is drenched to the bone and dancing -- and cheering the rain, and the deejays are trying to protect their equipment and the needle skims across records and still people are cheering, because nothing is shutting down. It's still a party.

Then the rain stops. And people move outside the tents and dance along the water. There's so much music to hear. We stop and listen and groove and dance -- and then move on. We go from Seb Fontaine to Eric Morillo to Josh Wink to Sasha and Digweed and Icey and Hybrid and Dave Ralph and then we head over to the amphitheatre where it's Christopher Lawrence.

It's a wonderful crowd. We feel totally a part of it. We see some boys who could be circuit boys. We see eye candy everywhere. People are friendly. No one's bitching about anything. There's a table where people from the islands are cutting fresh pineapple and peeling fresh mangos. We eat.

There's also a midway with lots of other food. Sides of beef, for example, stretched on a wire contraption. It seems a little "black party" for a daylong festival. Maybe people are actually eating it.

The sun goes down behind Miami's skyline. A different mood takes over. The crowd is definitely looser. More relaxed now. All vitamins have kicked in.

We make our way back to the amphitheatre -- and it's packed and now we know why: it's Oakie. Paul Oakenfold. And he has the crowd, and it's a real crowd, way beyond any circuit party we've been to except for Black and Blue Main Event, in the palm of his hand. It's a glorious thing to look across the amphitheatre which is packed with people dancing, their arms in the air, dancing with their glowsticks, and the sun is setting behind us, and onstage, Oakey has a video which mixes images of the WTC in New York with the palms of Miami -- and can I be forgiven for getting emotional at this moment? It's incredible, all this energy, and it's all about the music and it's very weird to think about the fact that a war has just started across the ocean.

Music is the only religion here -- and frankly, I can't help but wish it were that way the world over.

We are entranced by Paul Oakenfold, but mostly by the crowd which worships him. Once before we saw him, at the Hammerstein here in NYC, as an opener for the Chemical Brothers, but this time, something about him playing outside, and at the peak of this all-day music festival, and the way his fans were worshipping him.... It was perfect.

It was a wonderful day.

Here's what else we noticed/concluded about the differences/similarities between circuit parties and all-day music festivals where gay people are the minority.

1. festival boys dance facing the deejay. they don't touch each other. circuit boys can't stop touching. 2. festival boys eat food. such as hotdogs and corn arepas and slabs of meat. circuit boys eat altoids. 3. festival boys don't smash into you with intent to kill when leaving the dance floor. they say, 'scuse me, bro.' 4. festival boys come in all sizes and shapes. (in other words, the gym might be as foreign to them as Rome) 5. festival boys keep their shirts on. circuit boyz - duh. 6. festival boys shave their legs. so do circuit boyz. 7. festival girls dress like raggedy ann or butterflies or angels. circuit girls wear Hello Kitty tees. 8. drag queens are a no-show at festivals. Hello? Don't they have a Kitty or Power equivalent? 9. festival folks don't mind dancing on grass, and mud. circuit boyz? I don't think so. 10. festival water cost four dollars for twenty-four ounces. circuit party water? the reverse. 11. festival platinum sponsor: budweiser circuit sponsor: Bacardi 12. festival decorations: black trash bags 13. festival folks worship deejays as a congregation, in a pie-shaped wedge. circuit boyz hope for an invite to the pulpit from nurse. 14. festival folks don't fall-out, or at least not with such
alarming frequency. 15. festival folks love their music. so do circuit people.

In the end, that's what it was all about -- and that's why we had fun.

South Beach. Miami Beach. Miami. Gotta love it.