Viva Las Vegas?
I’ve been away from my keyboard lately because I spent ten days in Las Vegas taping this little game show I host. It’s not that I couldn’t have written anything from that city; in fact, I had intended to do so. But ten days is a very long time to be in Las Vegas, and by about the middle of the third day my brain had turned to tapioca.
I’m not sure the temperature ever fell below 100-degrees, even overnight, and the tinted windows of my room kept me in a constant state of twilight. The outside world meant less and less to me as each moment went by. I spent more hours than I should have in the casinos, where time doesn’t seem to count. We taped from about 3:30 till 9:30, so I never had any proper dinners. By the middle of the fifth day I had trouble picturing the members of my family, and I was sure I had been there for well over a year.
After the eighth day, I seemed to remember being born in Las Vegas, and I was quite certain I would die there. When I finally did board the plane out of town, I couldn’t remember where I was headed.
I’ve been back home for two days now, and people and places are starting to look familiar to me. I’ve even turned on my computer again and looked at the Internet. I might even have something more to write for Ricochet once the fog lifts.
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Comments :
Jul '10
Re: Viva Las Vegas?
the phrase "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" seems so much more sinister now.
May '10
Re: Viva Las Vegas?
"You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave."
As usual, the names have been changed to protect the innocent.
Jun '10
Re: Viva Las Vegas?
Not saying this ever happened to you Pat, but I've heard of people that spend a week Las Vegas, at a convention maybe, and their memory loss is so severe they forget they're married, even forget their age. It can be very disturbing to see up close.
Jul '10
Re: Viva Las Vegas?
Too funny....
May '10
Re: Viva Las Vegas?
A friend of mine has been trying to get me to go out there next month. You talked me in to it Pat - roadtrip!
Re: Viva Las Vegas?
Pat, a few minutes after I read your post, I was walking through the terminal at SFO, heading back to LAX. I passed a perfect living illustration of what you've described: at Gate 85, an eager, jumpy group of cheerful and excited passengers waiting to board the flight to Las Vegas, waiting impatiently as the passengers on the inbound flight from Las Vegas disembarked, in straggly, ill-tempered little clumps, looking pale and exhausted and furious.
I can take 2 days in Las Vegas -- 3 tops. But after that, madness sets in. Look what it did to Howard Hughes. You weren't walking around your hotel room in Kleenex boxes, were you?
Re: Viva Las Vegas?
One of my favorite places in the world is the In-N-Out in Barstow, CA. Strategically located midway between Vegas and LA, there the weary traveler may find a human ecosystem unlike any on Earth. Desert cheerleaders mingle with migrant workers; bikers hunch over Double-Doubles as lounge zombies in bowling shirts squirt themselves out little cups of ketchup. Frat guys looking very far away from UCLA cluster beside big Mexican families. It is nowhere and everywhere all at once; yet piled on top of that, like grilled onions atop a thick slice of fresh tomato, it is also, and only, and never possibly other than, the In-N-Out in Barstow.
Re: Viva Las Vegas?
It's difficult to make the Vegas-LA drive without feeling a bit like a survivalist who has left the smoldering, bombed-out city behind. It really should be in black and white.