Waves of chest-collapsing bass pulsed across a grassy field south of Homestead’s Turkey Point nuclear power plant. A crush of 20-somethings navigated around hundreds of steel drums filled with depleted uranium. Partygoers packed around a DJ booth playing big room house. Multicolored lasers pierced the night above while puddles of fissile material cast shadows from below. And in the middle of the jumping, gyrating, flailing crowd was Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, tripping absolute balls.
“I’m one with the universe!” yelled DeSantis, arms and face to the sky as a truly banging remix of Endor’s “Sexiest Man in Jamaica” rocked the crowd. The governor’s getup consisted of a banana costume and leather booty shorts.
“Yes! Yes! Here comes the drop!” DeSantis reached a tantric climax and blacked out.
Once revived, Florida’s chief executive rolled around the ground giggling for ten minutes before regaining any semblance of cognitive thought.
I asked why he encouraged Floridians across the state to congregate in highly radioactive environments. Facedown in the grass, he responded with, “We gotta party, bro. It’s, like, what we do, or whatever. The economy needs it. I need it! For my soul!”
DeSantis spent the next five minutes repeatedly mispronouncing the word “radioactive.” Unable to elicit further discernable answers, I searched for another interviewee as a sick-ass mashup of “Aerodynamic” and “Sandstorm” blasted the irradiated landscape.
Jonathan Reinhold, a shirtless sophomore at the University of Miami, bounced in cadence to the beat with eight of his equally shirtless frat brothers. I asked what he thought about scientists’ warnings against contact with radioactive material.
“That’s bullshit, man!” he retorted. “Nuclear scientists think they’re so smart because they have Ph.D.’s, or whatever, but I took an intro to bio course and I’m pretty sure I can make my own…” Reinhold vomited blood onto the grass.
“That was weird,” he exclaimed, wiping his mouth. “Anyway, I’m a grown-ass man and can make my own decisions about my health. I’m not hurting anybody.”
By the time I explained that uranium embedded in one’s hair and clothes could easily contaminate others, Reinhold and his frat bros had crumpled into a foaming pile of biceps, testosterone, and radiation poisoning.
Back at the DJ booth, ecstatic ravers jammed to the pulsating music until the stage melted.
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Andrew Otazo
'Miami Creation Myth' author Andrew Otazo has advised officials on Cuba policy, worked for the Mexican president, fired a tank, and ran with 30lbs of trash.
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