As the ball dropped to usher in 2015 I found myself standing in the American Airlines Arena in Miami, Florida along with thousands of like-minded souls, watching Phish do their thing. After an appropriate amount of after-partying (it was New Years Eve after all) I found my hotel, in which I found my room, in which I found my bed, in which I soon found myself tossing and turning and wishing the day would just curl up and die as the sun rose on January 1st.

Or so I’m guessing. It’s not like everything that gets deposited into my memory bank gathers interest, and in this case the entire four-day run just sort of blends into one big smear of entertainment.

I wouldn’t be too surprised if this was the day that m’lady and I headed into Miami’s famous Little Havana and had lunch at the city’s best-known Cuban restaurant. Regardless, I certainly wasn’t surprised to discover that our meal was sub-par at best. Having scoured a bevy of restaurants in actual-sized Havana over the course of two week-long trips to Cuba I have determined that the country’s cuisine is spotty and uninteresting at best*.

Of course, the day (lazy as it likely was) was capped with the second night of Phish’s four-nighter. Now, I’m not saying that the Phish fellas stayed up too late the night before like everyone else did, but looking back at the setlist it seems like they were easing themselves (and the rest of us by proxy) into the New Year nice and easy.

Not that the show was a sleeper, but it did have its fair share of relaxed moments. Prince Caspian, Lawn Boy, Winterqueen leading into Wading in the Velvet Sea, Undermind, Yarmouth Road…you get the idea.

Or maybe you don’t. Maybe you’re thinking, “Wait a minute dude**, some of those songs aren’t so chill.

“Okay, maybe they aren’t ragers,” (thinkst thou, permaybe), “But c’mon, they ain’t sleepers…”

Or maybe you don’t even know these songs; maybe to you these are just random, silly titles.

If so, you are much more likely to buy the line I’m selling***. Because really, sometimes I either don’t know what I’m talking about or else I’m just trying to tether some sort of thread through these narratives through leaps and lackadaisical lies.

Or both. In which case, those Phishier-than-thou can (and do) easily call me out, or at least spend several boring hours arguing their case, citing obscure dates and venues to prove their eye-rollingly uninteresting points.

Better to just take my word for it. Trust me.

*And utterly inedible at worst. The worst seemingly-appetizing meal I’ve ever had in my life was at one of the ‘special’ restaurants in an upscale Cuban resort, plus there was that time that m’lady vomited up her meal on the front steps of a fancy restaurant in Havana’s old town. That said, I am very eager to be proved wrong with regards to the quality of Cuban dining.

**Don’t “dude” me, dude.

***Speaking of “selling”, we had arrived in Miami without any tickets (on purpose) and for this second night I scored a pair out front for “free or anything you want to pay.” The guy said he would donate anything I gave him to Phish’s charity The Mockingbird Foundation so I gave him $40 for the pair. That was the most I paid for tickets over the entire four-night run.

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