The Artisan

Welcome to Stanley Kubrick's Haunted Mansion, one part Disneyland and one part Lolita but one hundred percent the most obscure attraction in all of Las Vegas. For someone who has lived here for over fifteen years somehow the bar in this hotel had escaped my detection. The hotel itself is a very inconspicous sort of standard issue white colored building, no different than the typical cookie cutter motels that line strip mall districts throughout the highway of middle America. I had been given a tip off that the usual Thursday night house music scene had started to make a bi-weekly transition from the more notable as well as more commericalized Ghostbar over at the Palms hotel, a place of note where many twenty and thirty somethings come together in the practice of ritualize mating where ten dollar mix drinks along with thirty dollar cover charges have become totally acceptable, to the Artisan a more low key yet unexplored territory by your narrator.

Not much of the glitz tonight, as I turn off onto a side road mostly noted for the array of strip clubs lining it, though while driving up into the parking/valet section of the hotel, a strange feeling of empty mysteriousness began to develop a disturbing sort of vibration in my mind, resulting in a slight sense of paranoia, where the hell is everyone I thought, not really any cars to be found at all, the parking spaces completely void of any sort of sign that anyone human might actually be staying in this hotel, possibly another just casuality of the recent down turn in the economy, have I been led on a wild goose chase to this potentially boarded up relic that looked like some leftover artifact from Hurricane Katrina. The mood here felt dead, silent, and possibly dangerous, yet within another minute out came the valet attendent, non-descript, seemingly pre-occupied with other tasks located in other regions of the hotel. The man was pleasant, grabbed the keys then drove off with the car into the darken depths of what looked like a black hole, not too much lighting around here except in the valet area itself, the entire region drops off into darkness like a small town after the sunset.

Walked into the hotel which at first glance looks like an estate auction filled with all sort of arachiac furniture, movie props, and various other kinds of objects which one might find in the background shots of Citizen Kane. Where the hell is the desk clerk, does anyone even work in this place, total vacany, amongst all the consignment store possessions. A faint sound of house music can be heard coming from a back room, as I past floating empty picture frames supended by wires invisible to the naked eye, dark barely lit book cases full of anonymous novels of various titles, a siena color tone with some amber straw yellows in low levels of intensity washed over most of the backdrop. I had been dropped into some sort of movie set, part The Shining, part Disneyland's The Haunted Manison. But the bar itself has to be one of the best hidden gems in the city. Pretty damn good house music, nothing cheesy, DJ booth way up on the second floor, out of sight, taking a pretty good effort to find it. Old victorian style chairs, coffee tables, and lots of earthy colors as the usual crowd started to pile in for the next hour, where I ran into many people who I have bumped into on various other club nights throughout the city, guess this Thursday night was the new underground haven, the special night only certain peeps get the lowdown on, so don't know how I got involved, yet still nice to finally be around some people who did not, become uncomfortable when discussing dance music, in fact quite the opposite, their input had me listening more often than commenting while drinking down a few Stellas.

After taking some substances, the bar took on a new look, began to grow in demension to the point where all the furniture, suspended artifacts, and ambient lighting gave off a real strong surreal vibe, something to go with no matter where the location, but with all the great people tonight, the appearance of the bar only seem to give the night more flavor, like a personal sanctuary of club music, still could not get over the fact as walked out to use the bathroom, how empty the hotel was, did not feel like anyone might be staying in the place, nothing but more random darkwood coffee tables, roll up desks, oil based painted landscapes on canvas, and an old wooden telephone booth, the kind you walk in, as well as a veener covered fireplace, have I stepped back into the set of Masterpiece theater, where was Alistar Cooke sitting, had they cued him to introduce that bizarre affair of misfits, artists, and professionals who all used this bar as a freak gathering, it would appear after the first woman outside of the bathroom, with full inked up right arm to her chest with various other alt chilche styled dress and overall appearance, asked me if I had any cocaine.

Most clubs, people sort of hint around if they can smell drugs on you, sort of nudge, nudge, wink, wink, but as quiet, deserted, and mellow as the Artisan felt, straight propositions from drugs did not seem out of the question, but all I had was some Molly (MDMA), this did not seem to slow her down from an overall need to ingest some narcotics, maybe due to the fringe like nature of the surroundings or just basic desire to fall into all the bizarre potential of what the rest of the night could mutate into at anytime. Off she went into the bathroom, I was already zinging along on a few things, so looking around at the all the set pieces, mirrors, and the occassional patron helped pass the time, well look, finally a human being who works here, the bathroom attendent, a small little Mexican woman who had to be going with all of this weird behavior beginning to develop at the Artisan, hiding in a dark little corner, smiling, I said a few things in Spanish about the place, she laughed, no big deal here, weekly thing as she ducked back into the ladies room which looked to be the drug den of choice for the ten women in their at the time.

Might as well, kiss that G of molly away, dosing out the whole place, but within a few more mintues, my alt rocker woman of the moment came back out, glassy eyed and somewhat removed from her immidiate environment, must have tooted to the stuff, the molly gets right on you when one honks it down, as opposed to eating it, regardless, I ask her what she does for a living, she is attractive, why not lay down some groundwork, come to find out that my alt rocker princess with short fiery red hair and pale white skin is a professor at the local university. Doesn't that beat all, suit by day, and freak by night, this is life in the 21st century, offered her a drink, set her off toward a friend of mine, as I sat back down, where the bartender already had two more cold Stellas waiting for me, the king of service here, no televisions, just empty frames, and some sexy ass brunette who checked in at about five eleven, as being six two, I think I have a chance with her, as this woman huddles into the comfortable circle of her friends as insulation, as a dare for me to break the circle, she has checked me out a couple of times, but a friend of mine and myself are quickly ascending to the higher planes of altered consciousness, have to reel it in a bit, unless we will drift off into the land of where the insane, demented, and brain fried can only related with all the heavy deep material coming out of our mouths, for most at those times, people clear out, two loons are on a mission to go over the edge, kamikaze style, suicide bomber style, like here come the trails, the nonsense making sense, and the total reevaluation of the human condition, these conversation become uncomfortable, though normal to myself and friend, take concepts and tangents into other galaxies, may burn social norms to the point where subservise behavior comes something of an everyday event, while even more being able to spot this amongst the masses in any given moment puts you in that sort of Matrix land, where there is no turning back, the veil of Oz has been lifted, the game is up, you know the results before they happen, the tendecies and hidden lives of others, the deep dark characteristics of individuals upon first meeting, and lastly how to draw out that dark nature inside to further your own personal needs.

A scary weapon, but one that comes with so many decades of living with two hot wires, one in each hand, then connecting them together, a conduit of energy moving through every living person in this place tonight. Another trip to the bathroom, where an impromptu cocaine key bump session has broken out, eight people in this small eight by ten room, holding conversations about house music, introductions are made as the key makes it way around the circle, talk to the main man with the goods and we hit if off in that sort of two out there people with a mutual understanding for pegging the fun meter at all time so, I get a double dose of the white, now things really pick up speed, must have spent a half hour in there, talking amongst everyone, mostly me praising this club night in amazement, just like the old days, where a common sort of agreement became instantenous, nostalgia set in, recollection of various club nights throughout the past fifteen years, here we were these old thirty somethings, still unable to let go of heading out for a night in order to get weird, bang the gong, and push everyone to make the night even more enjoyable.

By this time, I am in pretty deep, need to get the beers down to offset the new rush of C, so take a bit of MDMA to space out, pop half a downer, then get real loopy, speedball central, for my friend he is off as always talking to everyone, he is way deeper than me and people instantly gravitate towards him, he takes off the gloves and just goes with everything, the masses of our sort worship him for it, by this time I am buying rounds of drinks, passing the molly bag around, things begin to loosen up, no Fun Police just straight good times, dancefloor starts to get packed, move over a few more coffee tables to give people some room to dance, at this Elks lodge on acid, stand behind one of the empty picture frames for a while, getting the reverse vista look of everyone having a good time, well outside the obvious clamor of Las Vegas nightlife, this place is anything but Las Vegas, almost NYC or SF, a private Idaho for some old schoolers and new comers who need a place to be themselves without all distractions of overpriced drinks, weekend warriors, and amatuer drunks with nothing but hate on their minds, no judgements or negative vibes and who can not get with that kind of scene.

Things begin to blur as C bumps start to take place in the open, the DJ turns up the flavor of the music as the crowd responses, now a full on dance alert to the dancefloor. What time is it? Damn, 430am, shit we have to be to work in three hours, so time to wrap the show up here, exchange emails and business cards, sadly say goodbye to the funnest crowd in Vegas ever. Head up to HQ where our boss is holding down the casino bar, so looks like no sleep tonight as he tells stories of his former years working with rock touring bands, many famous ones that still play today and soon enough it is almost 8am and time to go back to work, where we leave our Sista obsessed boss to workout on some 6am leftover lady of the night as he attempts to wedge her away from some middle aged, balding, contract worker, the man looks a little upset by my bosses move to pull her away, so I have to step in, acid muscle, just in case the other guy gets jumpy, all for the client, my job, my way of life, now off to the easy part, pulling off a live television production with no sleep at all, just another day at the office, the real work will begin again, when the show ends and the instincts of my fellow television brethern turn to more hedonestic ideas such as crashing strip clubs till 8am, who can't love a job like mine See Ya