From: Veronica to Morgan Willis

Date: 4 January 2022

Message:

Hi Morgan, I feel compelled to write to you and tell you how your music has enriched my life. I’ve always been a synthwave fan ever since I was a baby in the 80s. My passion for the genre was reignited after buying the complete series of Miami Vice on a whim at a hardware store about a year ago. I then introduced the show to a man I had just begun dating and over the course of the last year we fell in love with each other, the show, and synthwave music. We also discovered our mutual love of tennis and spent hours upon hours on the tennis court this summer and fall, listening to our favorite synthwave mixes on our Bluetooth speaker.

When we discovered Miami Calling, it was like we found the soundtrack to our happiness and love for each other. It was the perfect music to play tennis to—the steady, rhythmic, yet mellow beats made our swings better! Since my boyfriend and I are both single parents who are budget conscious, we play at the local high school tennis courts because they are nice and better yet—free. Towards the end of the season, a man we saw playing there regularly too came up to us and said “I’ve really enjoyed your music. It’s something I look forward to when I’m here!”

This summer we were inspired to go on a tennis vacation for a weekend to a local lake town nearby called Saugatuck, Michigan. We brought the speaker and played in a very cool public tennis court located downtown. We played all day, listening to Miami Calling, with lots of passersby saying “this is awesome tennis music! Who is this?” Of course we told them!

I live in South Bend, Indiana which is far away from you I’m sure. But I think it would be rad if maybe we can be pen pals. Thank you for being you and sharing your gift of music with others. It has truly impacted my life in such a positive way. Veronica

THEN HE WROTE BACK!!

From: Morgan to Veronica

Date: 14 January 2022

Message:

Hi Veronica,

sorry for the delay.  

your message touched me, I am very happy that my music can accompany you,.

  thank you so much that’s why I make music, your message is a wonderful reward <3

Thank you 

I was so stoked he wrote back!! I spent some time carefully crafting my next response. It had to be perfect.

From: Veronica to Morgan

Date: 8 February 2022

Message:

Hi Morgan,

I wanted to tell you I was so excited to receive your message. I’ve been meaning to write back sooner, but then life happened and I’m just now getting to it. I wanted to ask you: how did you get into synthwave? It seems like your earlier work is more of the House genre, but then there was a switch to synthwave somewhere around Hyperion. What made you switch? I wonder if there’s an interesting story there.

My boyfriend and I are getting ready for tennis season in the spring and are putting together our playlists. Any recommendations? 

Veronica

I am still waiting on those recommendations. My heart is a little broken I got ghosted. But according to the kids, I am besties with a French DJ. In the meantime, you all can enjoy the soundtrack to our love story: The Saugatuck playlist.

So there we were standing outside a locked tennis court that the concierge told us was “well-serviced” (free balls, pro shop). Turns out the balls aren’t free. You can’t even buy them. You have to rent them. And they are flat at best! The pro shop was a conex, or “shipping container” for those not in the import/export biz, filled with a couple of lawn mowers, beat up tennis racquets, and broken promises.

Looking at the locked gate, my partner asks “How are we going to get in here?” I say: “I left my wire cutters in my other tennis bag.” Then she says “Hey, what year was this place built?” Looking around at the grounds, I could tell it was from the 1970s. She tries 1-9-7-0. Nope. She tries 1-9-7-1. The lock flies open. Bingo. They can’t outsmart two seasoned Tennis Vice cops.

Let’s rewind the scene. We landed in Florida at the beginning of December for a 4-day tour. Despite being a seasoned vice detective, it was my partner’s first time in Florida. As we drove down the fevered coke frenzy/Floridapolcalypse Mad Max of I-4, my partner casually asks me “Is that the real Sea World? It really exists?”

We pull in, wheels screeching, into the nearest Pollo Tropical while locals stared at us as we ordered everything on the menu. This was a pilgrimage for me and an initiation for my partner. Of course, it was perfect and she’s now a Pollo junkie, too.

Now, back to tennis. It should have come as no surprise that the tennis court was nice, but like everything else in the hotel, was slightly broken and trashed. We didn’t let that ruin our good time, though. The grounds crew and various wildlife, including a hawk acting as our chair umpire perched on the court’s fence for hours at a time, watched as we took that 1970s hotel into the 1980s with our dope-ass playlist.

After reaching our saturation point for Pollo, we hit International Drive for some Fogo de Chão for what my partner called “A Festival of Meats.” We enjoyed a very decadent 16-course meal in the following order: lamb, beef, beef, beef, chicken, I don’t know I think I blacked out…and quejo asado (fried cheese and honey) for dessert.

After gorging ourselves on all of Old MacDonald’s farm, we had a run in with the local riff-raff looking for his next fix. Now, we know from our years on Vice Squad that crime never sleeps. We let him go this time, but he owes us a favor.

Good food, good drinks, great tennis. Orlando was a great working vacation for a couple of Tennis Vice cops.

Let me tell you about a place where they move a lot of weight at the docks. Where you can get fresh cut snow even in May. Rooftop bars, steakhouses, and…neon. I’m talking about a little place called Maumee Bay, the Miami of the Midwest.

So no shit there we were. It was a Friday night and we found ourselves cruising down the industrial waste district, looking for a nice, old-fashioned, wholesome slam shack. You know it’s nice when you have a private garage so no one knows you’re there. The fireplace is roaring, chains hanging from the ceiling, and no windows. Just a nice, ma-and-pop, cozy sex dungeon. The service was EXCELLENT ::chef’s kiss:: right down to the warm Costco muffins after spending a low-key relaxing night hitting all those winners.

A local informant, we’ll call “Izzy” told us about the best public tennis courts in town, Ottawa Park. Let me tell you–Ottawa Park is the South Beach of Toledo. A beautiful array of people–different ages, ethnicities, nationalities, and ability levels. You had the beer league tennis players talking shit to each other: “I saw you hitting that ball machine lately!” “You didn’t see shit, Phil!” Curse words were flyin’ from the other courts where you had Franco-Haitians and Chinese students from University of Toledo battling it out. Then we roll in, with our mint condish Jimmy Conners Slazenger warm-up jackets, sweatbands, and the newest dopest playlist.

After all that tennis we checked in to the Renaissance, a real classy joint downtown with a rooftop bar and dope bartenders with dope earrings (literally). The jerk chicken was so good we came back to get more after unsuccessfully searching downtown for an hour for a place to eat dinner. We even stopped by a fancy steakhouse during this misadventure that had bull dicks drawn on the menus and walls. The waiter was like that scene in Titanic when Leo was trying to be fancy and shit. We blew that place before it hit an iceberg. Back to the rooftop bar in the night sky, and back to our jerk chicken and Miller Lites (years on the Vice Squad gave us a refined palate).

Before we said adios to Toledo, we hit up an art museum and toured a cool, old-ass cargo ship. It was built in 1911 and pulled off the Edwardian-era better than that ox dong restaurant (featured in Titantic 2: The Second One).

If you’re looking for a nice, relaxing weekend with tennis, rooftop bars, slam shacks and water buffalo bacon bazookas, we highly recommend “Pure, uncut –Toledo, Ohio” _^TM (million-dollar idea and it’s OURS!)