Flat Tire in Flagstaff. Sounds like the name of a song don't it? Or some kind of kinky euphemism. "I totally dug him but then he was all about having a Flat Tire in Flagstaff if you know what I mean."
I guess I saw it as more of the former because the whole time Butterscotch was changing, I was humming Tenth Avenue Freeze-out and substituting Flat Tire in Flagstaff for the lyrics. A cop walked by with a tip of the hat and says "that sucks." as we stand there at the curb with all our luggage strewn on the sidewalk in front of a diner. Snake-Eyes mutters "asshole" under her breath as soon as he's past us.
Flagstaff is a quaint looking town. Brick sidewalks. A shop-lined main drag where none of the buildings top 3 or four stories. Right down the street from us is the Hotel Monte Vista where we'd spent the night before.
A “haunted” hotel. Barbara Stanwyck suite. One of the walls was light blue velvet. Something is spattered on it. Lit mainly by a glass dangling light fixture. Out the window is a balcony that we couldn't figure out how to use, and the window facing us across the street had its blinds shut, and red light pulsing through the cracks.
Across the hall was supposedly the room where two prostitutes were murdered. John Wayne himself had sighted ghosts on the hall where we stayed. Perhaps adjacent to the Debbie Reynolds suite a couple of doors down. From a peek in when we went down for coffee, it was bright pink. Maybe a precautionary measure against bad spirits.
The key didn’t work at first. The desk clerk told us it was because sometimes when there’s ghosts in the room, they short out the electrical circuits. Truth? Or agenda
None of us slept terribly well, caused by ghosts or no, and the first thing we come across when trying to get going in the morning is the realization that one of our tires is a virtual pancake.
Once the donut is secured, it's on to the Flagstaff airport. Goodbye Blue Hybrid Nissan. Hello White Non-Hybrid Nissan. Least we get to see several cute little cub airplanes on our way back out.
Driving past signs for towns that list their founding dates, us Northeasterners chortle. These cities and towns weren’t even in existence when our towns were celebrating centennials, bicentennials, but their national monuments got us beat. They don't count their years of existence in the hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, or even bare millions.
Hundreds of millions of years of glacially slow change and construction stretch before you, etched in layers in the rock. It is older than those of us who can appreciate, but still not quite describe it. The entire recorded history of humanity started when this bastard was nearly the same as it is today. The Grand Canyon.
Seriously, a picture is not even worth a thousand words here, a picture isn't worth 5 seconds of actually being there and seeing it. It's immense. It's mindboggling. It's awe-inspiring. It makes you feel so very very small, and lifts you up at the same time.
Some of the rocks down near the bottom, just might have gotten there two billion years ago. That was a B there. Billion. I am a long time away from natural science textbooks, but a glance at the guides available at one of the visitors center, with their brackets pointing to different types of rock, and the different amounts of years suggested by each of these divisions...makes me look at geology in a whole different way.
For some reason, I always thought of it as a study of the properties of the minerals themselves, but I see it in such a bigger picture now. It's about mapping the history of our planet, and being as we have been there for such a small part of it, we can only pull together unspeaking clues to figure it out. The Grand Canyon, and a lot of the southwest it seems, offers clear markers by which we can measure the evolution, not of life, but of the globe it all exists upon.
Also, it's darn purty. We take the requisite dozens of pictures. Nothing sets off the majestic eternity of the vista of the Grand Canyon like capturing Butterscotch and Snake-Eyes having a slap-fight on a cliff-edge in front of it.
We hike down about an hour's worth, and the return journey takes what feels like twice that. I curse every extra unhealthy thing I've ever done, or at least I would if I had any breath. Not to worry though, the guide handed out at the visitors center declares that people fall over the side "surprisingly rarely." Not the most reassuring combination of adverbs I've ever seen.
By the time we get back to the top, sunset is dangerously close. As we racing down a winding road to get to a lookout point for sunset, I put on some Ennio Morricone. It seemed like the thing to do.
The Hoover Dam is a striking sight, to be sure. When it first looms into view, the dam jokes we are making ("I'm going to use the dam bathroom" "Let's take some dam pictures." "Where's the dam parking lot?") actually cease for a few minutes.
Tons upon tons of concrete wedged there between breathtaking gorges and clear blue-green water. Now with the added scenic value of the Hoover Dam bypass, arching across your vision, if you hadn't yet had enough reminder of the ability of people to create massive civil engineering projects with graceful curves in the middle of the desert. Named after Mike O'Callaghan and Pat Tillman...the plaque does NOT mention how the latter was killed by friendly fire.
The memorializations at the Dam are more thorough. The hundred-odd that died in the construction get a golden plaque of an Art-Deco looking Adonis rising up through the waves to hold his hands up, gesturing at the glory of sheafs of wheat. "They Died to Make the Desert Bloom." It is rather Soviet looking, the way that a lot of public works art from that era always look to me. A guide points out helpfully to his group "If you look closely, you can see drowned faces in the waves." Lovely.
It is pretty darn decorated bit of civil engineering. Humongous angels guard the flag pole, FDR stares down at you, daring you not to be impressed, and even the elevators get carvings. I'm a little fixated though on the star map below my feet. It's set so that without any other means of calculation, future generations, or extraterrestrials will be able to find the exact location of the pole star, and thus know the exact date that the dam was dedicated.
Hubris much?
It's not surprising to me that people out here would try to speak in the language of stars. Later that evening, it's our first night out in the real middle of nowhere, far from the lights of Vegas, and I see more stars than anywhere else I've ever been.
Not much more than a decade later, the honor of the shit that aliens would theoretically most be proud of that we did was changed over to our splitting the atom for weaponized purposes. Which occurred relatively close to here actually. They used to throw bomb detonation watching parties in Las Vegas.
In a little reminder of the interconnectedness that exists in history if you look close enough,
the town we were last in existed in part because of this public works projects. Las Vegas was hardly Sin City, more like Frowned-at Watering Hole until workers on this dam started daytripping up there to get their fill of gambling, drink and women while on break. The builders founded a more nearby city, Boulder City where the workers were supposed to stay, but to little effect. One wonders if any of the drowning faces the guide pointed out on the plaque had their fatal incaution brought on by a Las Vegas hangover. And nowadays, of course, Lost Wages has to power all that neon somehow.
A fitting introduction to the vast scenery we would soon be seeing, and how even the most ambitiously huge of structures can seem like anthills out there.
We felt so cowboyish that we even came up with the silly cowboy names I've been using for us this whole travelogue. Riding through the desert under a gigantic sky, in a Nissan instead of on a horse. Tumbleweed, Butterscotch, Snake-Eyes and me...Blitzen.
I make no pretenses. I know pretty much anyone reading this could tell that I am aware of Vegas’s most famous chronicler, if not an outright degenerate worshipper of the man. So yes, I made my stop at Circus Circus, and the Flamingo with reason. But I make no claims of taking this trip to discover the American Dream.
This is a journey into the Southwest, a place none of us had ever been before and knew quite what to expect from. But Snake-Eyes, Tumbleweed, Butterscotch, and me, Blitzen were more than ready to see what it was about.
When we land, Viva Las Vegas is piping in over the speakers before we’ve even taxiied to the gate. Judging by the canned music we hear all over the airport on our way to the rental car counter, early rock and roll is alive and well in Las Vegas.
I’m outside my hotel room and I’m looking at the New York skyline, but I’m in Las Vegas. But a confusing jumble of that familiar skyline. Consisting of only landmarks, all misplaced. And I don’t remember the roller coaster being there before. Plus the Statue of Liberty has moved uptown. It was inevitable, we all know. No one with that kind of class can persist so close to Staten Island.
All joking aside, you know every movie you’ve seen about Vegas, where you’ve shrugged and thought, no way it’s that garish, lurid, mindboggling, decadent and neon strange. I thought that too. Then I rode down the strip.
Here’s the best analogy I can come up with for it. It’s like if you showed a Martian a slew of technicolor movies and then you had them design Earth Capital based entirely on that. Slam the Eiffel Tower on top of a bastardized Louvre, after you’ve made them all out of movie-set grade bland construction materials. Pyramids? People had those right, and they make them out of glass. Throw one up over there. Earthlings drink beer and enjoy naked women right? So put up signs for beer that is cheap and naked women that you can find with the phone number provided. Humans enjoy circuses? Put up a huge clown.
Even analogies don't really do it though. Like a lot of scenery we caught sight of out West it has to be experienced in person to be fully processed.
The first night after that drive on the strip we stayed nested at the casino in our hotel which was "Featured in The Hangover." Took us some figuring to realize that meant the scene where they find the apartment of the stripper that one has accidentally married.
We learned a few important lessons that night. 1) Slots are almost fun if you understand how they work (something I never quite figured out in Atlantic City) and also most handy for the rest of our time in Vegas 2) With dollar drafts and dollar drinks you get what you paid for, and you paid for faintly flavored water that just might have the alcohol content of near beer if you're lucky.
But considering the time zone we're lagging in is three hours later than the one that the rest of Vegas is in, and that tomorrow is the day we plan to really crack this town, we have an early night. It's only 3 am when we hit the sheets.
A leisurely morning, a snack run for when we really gun out onto the road the next day, and we get to Las Vegas's New York, New York in the early afternoon, and stroll on past the Bellagio to Caesars Palace (it is called Caesars instead of Caesar's, because every guest should feel like a Caesar. Wow.)
But smack across the street is a bonafide landmark, The Flamingo. The Flamingo is one of the first casinos built on the Strip, and one of the first to put on classy airs instead of the Wild West themed joints on Fremont Street, the original gambling district of Las Vegas. It also began the decades-long tradition of mob money building up the Strip.
The Strip isn't technically in Las Vegas you know. That certainly helped its early years along, being in a jurisdiction gray area.
Bugsy Siegel and those he represented were flush with money the profitable sale of a downtown Vegas hotel, and after their buyout offer was turned down by the Rancho Las Vegas, one of the first on the Strip, they went in with Bill Wilkerson, a man trying and failing to build a luxury hotel in that area.
While the Flamingo was being built, the construction crews and suppliers bilked the inexperienced Bugsy for as much as they could, claiming post-wartime shortages. His investors assumed that meant he was skimming. After a disasterous first opening when the hotel section wasn't open, the hotel closed for months, then reopened to better returns. Wasn't enough to save Bugsy though, he got murdered in Beverly Hills in 1947. But the cocktail of luxury, crime and Hollywood glamour that the Flamingo offered attracted more people to the strip.
Viva Las Vegas and the original Ocean's 11 were filmed here. Hunter S. Thompson stayed here while crashing the District Attorney's conference on Drugs and writing Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I sip a dollar margarita and watch an impersonator whose dubbed himself Big Elvis. He's big alright.
A stop on over to the Casino Royale. The low-rollers joint. $3 Blackjack. $3 Craps. $1 drafts and margaritas that actually contain a fair amount of alcohol. We have at least 3 if not 4 rounds. Butterscotch wins 30 dollars at Black Jack. I lose 20 at a little bit of everything...black jack...roulette, and the trip favorite Spin to Win.
And from there it is a walk over to Circus Circus, one of my most anticipated spots. While flipping through my bible for this location that morning, I happened across "The Circus-Circus is what the whole hep world would be doing Saturday night if the Nazis had won the war. This is the sixth Reich."
The rotating bar in featured in Fear and Loathing is roped off, but still spinning, so I settle for having to play the rotating penny slots instead of getting a drink at the rotating bar. There are indeed circus acts upstairs on the midway, we see contortionists and magic tricks upstairs.
In the arcade room, there is air hockey and we win the whoopie cushion that is to become a constant companion. 2nd one. First one breaks instantly so the clerk gives us another. I had the broken one in my handbag for the rest of the trip for some reason.
On to the landmark that's been staring down at us the whole time. The Stratosphere. When we get up to the top, LasVegas stretches out before before us. Not as far as the eye can see though. There is abrupt black. That's because, as is easy to forget in this land of easy water and transplanted palm trees that we're right in the middle of the mountainous desert.
Also offered is bungee jumps off of this. Pay a wad to see the Strip hurtle up at you at incredible speed. People about to jump off it look like they're about to piss themselves.
On to the Sahara for dollar shots and buds and to grab a bite at the cafe. Steal a few shotglasses before finding out their souvenirs. Hear the karaoke that's going on, and people are so damn good they just must be ringers to draw people in, inspire them to buy up more liquid courage to go on themselves, or just inspire them to linger a little longer at the nearby craps table to catch the last few notes of I Will Survive.
These last few dollar shots, while more miniature, are not watered down. And with them being $1, their size is a problem cheaply solved. So the next few bits are kind of fuzzy. I remember getting an argument under the rail tracks outside that went something like this:
"Is that the monorail?"
"Nah, it's a rollercoaster."
"Bullshit, how many rails are there?"
"It goes in a circle, you ever see a monorail go in a - "
"HOW MANY RAILS ARE THERE?"
"One."
"So it's a monorail."
Walk down a more deserted section of the strip back towards the hotel. To the right of us, a derelict construction site. The high chain link fence above it is plastered with advertisements for the FontaineBleau. Coming soon in Fall 2009. Little off in the estimate there, fellas.
Snake Eyes sets off the whoopee cushion every few feet.
Emergency stocking surgery with a bottlecap outside a 7-11 at 2 am. Watching some unexplained fireworks in the distance, including a full on fireball. Sucking down MGDs. Desperately hunting bathrooms in department stores and casinos. Just miss the last Bellagio water show. Pee stop in the MGM Grand, and then crashlanding in our hotel beds and falling asleep.
Two weeks ago to the day, I was heading home from work. I had selected a few appropriate books for my looming road trip. I had roughly 5 hours of work left at my stinking job before ten days of straight up liberation through travel. All that was left to do was change the light bulb in my room so I could pack. Was aiming to arrange it so I didn't have to check a bag and this could make for a challenge even in a well-lit environment.
I was going to do it the night before so I could be all set to sit back and assemble playlists but when I got in from a few bon voyage drinks with my attorney and flicked on the lights, not a damn thing happened, and I wasn't about to change it tipsy at 1 am.
It's a good thing I hadn't tried then, though at least my roommate would have been there to lend a hand instead of a third of the way across the country.
So I grab a lightbulb and haul over my chair to underneath my globe light. Unscrewing it starts to turn difficult. Lefty Loosey, I'm sure of it, but I'm getting no give. Not to mention I'm not quite tall enough, even on my chair, for the angle to be anything but awkward. But I've done it before, it's just a matter of persistence, I think.
Then the light turns on.
I realize a few things in quick succession. First, this means that I don’t have to change the bulb. Second, this means that I was a fucking idiot to not turn off the lights when changing a bulb because remembering to do that is rule number one of not being a fucking idiot while changing a light bulb. This is because it stops you from faffing around with a live outlet as any elementary school child could tell you.
Third, I realized that the light fixture was no longer attached to the wall and would fall down immediately if I didn’t continue holding it up.
Which would be a pain in the ass to do anyway, as an awkward angle to continue holding my limbs but it gets more and more difficult with every passing minute as I become more and more aware that the temperature of the glass I’m holding up is increasing, as is my risk of electrocution.
The light switch is not anywhere near within reach.
So I’m trying to figure out how to get myself out of this, and am damn ready to give up on trying to screw it back in, a bastardized Owen Wilson quote is echoing in my head “I can’t fix this because I don’t have the tools! And even if I did have the tools, I don’t know if I can fix this!” Plus I know damn well that continuing to try to manipulate metal screw while the light is on is uncomfortable heatwise, and unwise electrically.
With bumbling silent caper film music tinkling in my head now, I start trying to hook the tote bag in my bed with my feet. After ten minutes and some serious leg and arm flexibility action I transfer the bag to my hand and hurl it at the light switch.
In the sole moment of grace in the whole thing, it actually works, and I’m plunged into darkness. Holy God! I think. I could totally shoot the oxygen tank in Jaws’s mouth.
My triumph lasts roughly two minutes as I realize that the fucking thing still isn’t going to screw in, even if I am, most likely erroneously, being more bold with my movements under the assumption that now that the light is off, I’m not going to taste copper and wake up on the floor a few hours later. Still, I give it the old college try, because fuck if I know what else to do.
I'm admitting now that I am unable to resolve this situation myself. I start grabbing at the corner of my jacket with my foot and dragging it towards me while trying to shut up the voice in my head insisting that my cell phone is absolutely in my bag.
Another six or seven minutes later, and I have my jacket and good lordy my cell phone was in my pocket.
I call my landlord and let him know I’m in a bit of a pickle. He shows up and starts knocking on the door which of course is locked. He tells me to let it fall. The disbelief is evident in his voice that I’ve been holding it up this long.
I let go of it and run to get the door.
No crash.
Son of a bitch. The fucker just hangs there from the wall lower than it should be, true, but no shower of sparks and broken glass that I’d been getting sore muscles from preventing.
I get a kindly talking to about what a dumb thing that was to do and a promise that someone will be by to fix it tomorrow.
I feel like there is a metaphor or life lesson I’m supposed to take from this, other than that I’m kinda dumb. That though struggles I undertake against adversity may be comical, the troubles may be only in my mind. Or maybe just to always check things like if light switches are off to avoid hijinks.
But! Colorful inebriational travelogue coming soon! Road Trip 2010. The Dirty Desert. Or The Bell Curve. Depending on who you ask. And when I return, I flick on the lights and there's a shiny new globe light on my ceiling.
