Journey to the End of South Nevada ...

Time-killing tripe

I'm sitting in the Las Vegas airport, which has always been a little underwhelming to me, given the city’s fixation on image. But it does have free and fairly encompassing wireless -- I’m down in the corner at C8, where flights back to Louisville always seem to board, and the throughput is quicker than at my house. So it’s as good a time as any to commit ruminations of my journey to the blog-o-verse, or whatever they are calling it these days. Because, after all, you need to know.

I’m now looking for a criminal enterprise of some sort to facilitate the purchase of a waterfall shower for my home. Of course, I imagine the criminal enterprise will also need to cover a new home capable of hosting such a fearsome beast of luxury and hygiene. I must have taken 15 showers at the hotel’s spa. The platter-sized shower head was at least 10 feet from the clay-tile floor, and there was plenty of room to disco in that stall, let me tell you. Shamu could drown in the water I wasted over a long weekend.

I remember being a little weirded out a few months ago when Kia ran an offer to give away one of its Rio models with the purchase of another new car. Now I know why. That thing was the biggest P.O.S. I have ever driven, and I paid $300 for a ‘73 Grand Torino back in college. I had to stand on it to hit 60. I’m dead serious.

I always feel a little guilty when I stay at a nice place, in this case the Green Valley Ranch, about seven miles from the Strip. I’m sure I could have feed several Indonesian children for many years with the money I blew on this jaunt. Having made that little confession, nothing makes the Shively in my blood boil like kids of privilege who don’t have some small inkling of how fortunate we all – and especially their sorry asses – are to enjoy the lifestyle we do. At least I work. On Monday morning, I was trying to nurse my third Knob Creek neat ($11, thank you) when these two 20-somethings came down to my solitary end of The Whiskey, the glam outdoor pool bar at Green Valley. They attempted to engage me in conversation, and being a wee bit tipsy, I obliged. Being a wee bit tipsy, I shortly told one of them he should kiss my fat white ass. I had listened patiently for at least seven minutes about how his parents were pushing him to take an extra month in Milan after graduation, instead of the four he has planned now, in lieu of his own scheme to get back to Vegas for an extra month in the early fall to “tap some more of this ass.” Not mine, the girls’, I’d suppose.

I’m always a little surprised at how scared young men are of a genuine threat from someone older and still semi-mobile. I get away with murder.

You will be hard-pressed to find an indigenous B-cup in Las Vegas, and if you do, it’s attached to a tennis pro’s physique. My acquaintance who I often visit as part of these little trips has always told me this, and it became clear to me this weekend just how prevalent plastic surgery and the all-around glamour ethic is in this town. The huge (DD and higher) boobs usually come attached to a straw cowboy hat this season.

Despite a population that “encompasses 1.7 million people” – I understand that Vegas actually accounts for the perpetual flood of hundreds of thousands of tourists in its census figures, as we in Louisville do a few thousand homeless folks – this city is still built around the hotels, which vie not only for the affections of tourists but of locals, as well. Hence the “pool party” that shattered my otherwise idyllic Sunday. It was about 11:30, I guess, when these insanely attractive women – I note the prevalence of DDs, not condemn it outright – started pouring into the pool area wearing swimsuits that I know cannot be comfortable. Turns out the hotel had invited several local models and adult dancers to come over and spice up the scene a bit; I know this because I asked one of the event hostesses, an insanely built brunet who may have been pretty under all that makeup, I couldn’t tell. Literally, it was all to much for me – I had to beat a retreat to the spa, and then ultimately to the waterfall shower when the club mix of Clapton’s “Forever Man” came billowing out from the DJ stand.

I read much of Celine’s “Journey to the End of the Night,” at the suggestion of a co-worker. Kind of Camus meets Animal House. I have to admit to chuckling at the brief interludes between the larger, preachier movements. I also was struck by the irony of reading French nihilism on the same weekend the French people killed the European Union constitution. And Memorial Day weekend, at that. It also occurs to me that some of this post sounds a bit like Celine (I don’t mean to flatter myself – I think most people write a bit like the last thing they read.)

An information operator could not understand my pronunciation of “Louisville,” and when I spelled it for him, he did not know where it was.

I’m more committed than ever to my moral of getting the cheapest room at a nicer place and then taking embarrassingly full advantage of amenities designed to lure in the upper crusts, who in all likelihood find these goodies trite, anyway. I sprang for a “petite suite” this go-round, with the direct promise of a balcony view of the pool. My balcony had a direct view of drywall – I was stuck in the corner of the complex, behind one of the faux-turrets you find in all Vegas construction. A complaint – not my last, mind you – got a shrug at the front desk. I felt like Icarus, flying too close to the Jessica Simpson sun in my “petite” pretentions. I did have a lovely lunch on that balcony, but I’ll chock that up to the company, not the accommodations. The $75 three-day pass to the spa and that magic showerhead, now that’s a different story.

I am on the plane now, and there is a thunderstorm to our left. Folks are taking photos. It really is beautiful. I am mostly over my crippling fear of flying, it seems.

I think I had a moment with a semi-famous person. I was waiting at the pool bar on the day of the big “party.” I had been cut inline by no less than three bimbos – really, DDs aside, these girls weren’t that cute, and meanness just is never attractive – when this young woman stepped up to the bar. The ho waters parted, let me tell you. She was very pretty and wearing a skimpy suit, to be sure, but she still had a decent air about her. She got her drink and then motioned to the bartender to take my order, which was a little more grandiose than the moment called for, certainly. I've been ugly for 37 years; I can hack it. I think she was trying to stick it to one of the more ghastly of the straw cowboy hats. And she didn’t pay for her drink, which surprised no one. The staff called her Emma, and it seemed to please her enormously that she let them do so.

We need an Original Pancakes House. Now. Oven-baked, four-egg Irish omelet, stuffed with corn beef hash, three cakes on the side. $8.95. I can’t write no prettier than that.

I had a fine time. I am very relaxed – that last bit of turbulence really didn’t get to me at all. I didn’t do a lick of work, despite my schemes to knock out some tedium on this flight. I am old, and I need to rest, damn it. I was so refreshed that today when I couldn’t find my rental car key only two hours before my flight, I refrained from the usual string of blasphemy that would come pouring from my gullet. It all worked out.

I am feeling so well, in fact, that I pounded out this mess of tripe in only an hour or so. These days I usually just find myself too bleary to write.

Lucky you.