Lola Claire topless in episode 2 of Hotel Cocaine

Tells the story of Roman Compte, Cuban exile, CIA operative, and general manager of the Hotel Mutiny, the glamorous epicenter of the late ’70s and early ’80s Miami cocaine scene.

Roman Compte is a historical figure and The Mutiny was more or less as described in the blurb above. That doesn’t mean this show is a documentary. We should find out from somebody who was actually in that world. The Miami New Times did just that. The author of the article says to the showrunner, echoing the Bensen/Quayle debates:

I know the Mutiny. I was a member of the Mutiny. I trafficked cocaine from the Mutiny and was there five nights a week from 1976 until it closed its doors in 1986. You, Sir, do not know the Mutiny.

Very interesting article, even more so to me because I lived in Miami from 1972 to 1979. I did not know The Mutiny. I had little kids, worked long hours, and played sports, so I had no time for the sorts of shenanigans pictured here. I have never done cocaine, rarely went to a club, and was never in Coconut Grove at night, so I know nothing of “the scene.”

But I knew the vibe of the city and remember it vividly. I can still see the Qiana shirts with their bold patterns. I can still hear the music of Little Havana, played live even during the mornings as it provided a backdrop to endless domino tournaments. I can still taste the sweet fried plantains. I can still smell the cigar shops and the Cafe Cubano. I can’t tell you how many hours I spent, basically every night between midnight and two A.M., at Orbea’s fronton, where I practiced my rebotes until I became one of the city’s better amateur pelotaris. Oh, how I loved to play that game! Perhaps because it was the only sport I was ever really good at.

It was a memorable place and time to be alive, even for a straight-laced working stiff on the periphery of the experience. In time, my company promoted me and moved me elsewhere. Jai-Alai became part of a half-forgotten dream about an alternate universe that could never be re-entered. My wife turned my cestas into hanging planters. In a sense, however, I never left Miami, even though I spent the next 15 years with different women and raising different kids in every nook and cranny of the world. To paraphrase Papa Hemingway, if you were lucky enough to have lived in Miami as a young man in the 70s, then wherever you went for the rest of your life, it stayed with you, for the Miami of that era was a moveable feast.

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OK, enough of an old man’s ramblings. Here, as promised, are 4K captures of Lola Claire topless: