I is for Intimacy

I am still coming to grips with how readily as humans we can flush down a decade's worth life with someone in just one second. Permanent, final, everlasting, taking all those days, months, and years, discarding them like plastic disposable goods, never a second thought or regret. There is something about the overall feeling of having to let go of a bond of close proximity that only or possibly only a week before appeared perfectly normal, though maybe blind to the reality looming in the future, life had its routine, very little awkwardness, no silent moments, or intentional disregard for the other person. Now, I have to go out of my way when she is around, just for the fact of how the breakup develop rather suddenly, as far as the execution is concerned, that giant wave behind the spilt had been building way off in the horizon until it darkened the entire sky and when it broke, there was nothing left to do but run for cover, somewhere safe, someplace far away from victimization, from dealing with all the new emotions attempting to drowned out my sanity, happiness, and security.

By the time, everything had settled, things were said only to hasten the permanence of the breakup. Which takes me up to today, where for the past few day I have began to really think about how two people could so readily discard so much of their history and seem to not care.
The analysis of ten years by the wayside, this decade of life, experience, rememberance, and growth, ended being nothing more than a flash flood, such since receeded, but leaving all this mess of mud covered streets, broken trees, overturned cars, and washed out buildings in ruin. Not sure that this is what truly confounds me about the turn of events, moreover it has to be how easy the idea of breaking up happened as well as how we both have gone on with our lives, disconnected, muted, and fractured, maybe even lobotimized from intimate partner to passing strangers, alien beings on different levels of communication. Everyday that passes has become easier and there is no return or animosity in the decision to move on, merely the shock of having to supress desires, needs, and emotions that not long along flowed so freely.

Now single again, at 39 no less, does not feel too weird in this forever young society, there is plenty of others out there waiting who seek varying degrees of romance, torture, and insanity, no doubt there will be people standing by that will be more than to happy to grant those people all the pleasures and nightmares they can handle, but for the moment I am quite content to just reaccumulate my senses, reorganize my feelings as well as thoughts, going active again amongst the general population of woman, does not feel any different than before, in fact I feel like a know a few more things than last time, but isn't that what experience is all about, being flirty does not feel so foriegn, dialouge comes out easier, have to be more witty, funny, while noticing all the other men attempting to do the same thing in order to secure that better female, almost tribal, with the bright colors, the precious metals, and blood lines, women choosing men, people choosing people, is more relavent today, either way enough nights drinking since have proven to me, that the single's scene is not much different than when I left it, only thing being, the bars stay open all the time in Nevada.

Thought I would have more to go on in regards to the instantaneous nature of dissovling my last relationship, but it seems like everything in 21st society we fire away at, then move on quickly, void of meaning, going braindead to keep from hurting or turning to chemicals to relieve the hurt, either way like chopping a log cabin down with a axe or dousing it in gasoline then lighting it on fire, the net result is the same. I will still have to wake up and face an unforgiving world which really has no time for the pitiful situation that has reared its ugly head, get past it they would say, don't wallow, go numb, get dumb, like everyone else, dealing with pain, anger, and confusion gets you nowhere, drink up, snort, watch a movie, go online, or read a book, who the hell does that last thing anymore, raise your hands, not too many, anyway, this ten car pile up is slowly clearing the internet highway to return bandwidths back to normal levels while the cyber pedistrians pass by this blog on ocassion to take a brief look like most due during a traffic accident on the freeway, then turn back to focus their attention on what in front of them, while now and then checking the rear view mirror for what's in back till nothing but darkness remains, faint car lights, turn off onto new exits and I am left driving alone on this freeway heading forward like I always, into whatever the future is willing to throw at me.

Poker Stars After Dark

In the vein of access I acquire through my work, last night's camera shoot provided a bit more of private insight into the world of high stakes poker than has already been satuarated on television networks throughout the world. This night was not about betting millions of dollars or the high pressure tension of either taking command of a table or leaving your seat, not even those special sort of personal interviews inbetween hands during a television episode. A gathering of high profile poker stars had come together to show solidarity for a fellow poker player who was battling cancer and after having a series of Chemothearpy treatments had lost all her hair, therefore a night had been established where these other poker stars would shave their heads in tribute to her plight and to serve as encouragement in her struggle against cancer.

The first thing that blew my mind for those who follow poker closely was to find out that Doyle Brunson, who is pretty much the godfather of poker battled cancer in his late twenties, went through all sort of surgeries and hell in order to beat it, he talked about the experience in a barber's chair in a small side room where the camera operator and myself (audio mixer) crammed inside to record the event, other players came in and commented on the overall positive nature of the event as well as how a bet had been created amongst some of the poker players less willing to shorn their locks, nothing like another bet to get poker players interested, something to win, or lose for a good cause. The setting for this close shave was one of the villas located inside the Bellagio, poker player Phil Ivey's personal room and I take it not too many people get a look inside one of these places, where every kind of high end brand of liquor and wine is stock, bathtubs the size of small pools, marble tile, thick carpets, one extremely large patio outside with a gigantic pool/jacuzzi combination and plenty of pickup games of Texas Hold'em being played on coffee tables by groups of poker players who have already spent the past twelve hours sitting at tables in a World Poker Tour event down in one of the Bellagio ballrooms.

The mood is light, plenty of joking amongst the players as to who will be least likely to shave their head, bets go around, tons of action in this place, most of it going on a particular player who is known for winning coin flips, everyone does not want to be on his team, all the other players in the shave off card bet which consisted of black and red cards that determined which team you ended up on, Tee, the woman who was battling the cancer would pick out a card, whatever color was drawn represented the group who had to shave their heads and to add to the action, a couple of jokers were thrown in the mix, which if picked meant everyone had to shave their heads, jeez these guys have to burn both sides, if anything just for the sake of making things interesting. These were the kids back in school during chemistry class who mixed chemicals together cause he or she heard they might make cause a large explosion or who jumped their bikes of the roofs of the school, and maybe even bet twenty bucks that they could go into the principal's office steal his or her's keys then drive off in the principal's car, ditch it and come back to class, just to hear about it in the morning news report during homeroom.

Either way I could see why all these people played poker, the constant pressure, the dynamic highs and lows, the thrill of big money as well as the ability not to crack when the money was heavily lost which is one thing that has always fascinated me about poker players especially in cash games where I have witness millions of dollars on a table at any given time, players with backpacks full of a half million, maybe a million, pulling out a stack of a hundred grand at a time like it was monopoly money, this half mill, fuck it, chump change, wipe my ass with this stuff, blocks at a time, feed the dogs with hundreds, soak them in meat blood, so the dogs eat the bills in entirety. This is the prevailing mentality here with the poker player, one most people in society admire, try to emulate as evident by all the millions of online players, yet somehow cannot simulate because they lack an intutive nature combined with a don't give a shit attitude, players who go in with a larger desire to win it all, then to settle for something middle of the road.

No average people here tonight, only one of the guys on the team who did not have to shave his head who decided to do it anyway after all the other players hounded into it while feeding the guy loaded mix drink after mix drink. He had a pretty good head of hair so watching him go from half shave mental patient, to mohawk, to freaky art school dropout hair do wise had the fifteen or so people watching in tears. He had not looked in the mirror as he held a vodka cranberry in one hand and Jack Daniels in the other, double fisted freely drinking from both, his reaction from my laughter did not unsettle him, fuck it was his motto, in whatever, which I could appreciate, no big deal, but the others who knew his personality thought otherwise and relished at watching him have his head shaved as some sort of psychic recompensation for past poker matches where this guy may have gotten over on them.

Personally, it was great to see all the support for Tee, but she did look rather uncomfortable with the entire situation and the video cameras, though gratified to an infinite extent, but somehow, unsettled, like hey this is great why don't some of you guys come down with me and have a couple Chemo treatments, then you'll really know how I feel and from the look of scar near the front right shoulder bone things looked intense, she talked about during an interview, how they pumped this fluid inside of her, like antifreeze, that is what came to my mind, three weeks of the shit, day after day, dealing with this foreign invasion inside the body, this invisible fight amongst cells, biology, and chemisty, things that had been lost in college level classes, yet now existed inside her in a battle to either live or die, be it in pain to a varied degree. After that speech by her, the entire head shaving thing began to feel rather prankish, fraternity like, a gentle pat on the back to someone facing the chair or the needle, hey we are here for you, one hundred percent, you can beat it, but she was standing alone, others might have been through it, but she was living it, especially being in her mid twenties or early twenties, who the hell is thinking about cancer, even when smoking a pack a day at that age, but life is weird like that, things creep up on you, silent assassins ripping away anything that ever reminded you of being normal, of living life without the reality of thinking about breathing, the heartbeat, or mental breakdown. Tee was looking death in the face and I think it scared the living hell out of her, it scares the hell out of me and I am just crazy, nothing like cancer, some guenia pig for the medical field in hopes they will find an out, just like in poker, getting that river card on the turn that gives you a set and snatches victory away from the jaws of defeat, this is the hand she wishes to be dealt, the hand she needs to be dealt, but like all these great poker players, she'll have her best face on till the end.

Food Pellets and the Video Slot Machine

Spent the afternoon dining with my mother who has just recently relocated from San Diego to virtual gambling haven of Las Vegas, luckily she has been sharpening her video slot machine skills over the past decade to fully develop a method of entertainment quite readily enjoyed by many other people in her age bracket. Figures awash in a time warp of bells, clanking coins, and pop hit classics from yesteryear, the continually flow of alcohol only dulls their nature to the concept of time while working out on their tenth one cent video slot machine of the night. The first thing I noticed about the penny slot area besides the people, will get into that in a minute, is the large variety of themed games, today in order to keep the interest of the short attention span populace, the machines must be named Texas Tea, Money Storm, Uncle Sam, Big Game Bob, and Hot Flashes.

Bonus rounds in these games offer extra opportunities to win more credits, more drinks, and dissapear into the mist of gambling oblivion. Today I am riding shotgun with a mother who really enjoys pressing a small square button over a thousand times in a day to watch some video screen spin some virtual reels that consist of animals, vegetables, famous presidents, and other eye catching ideas. It is not enough to merely support my mother, cheer her on as she plays so I put five bucks in the machine in order to pass the time, as well as give my mother another outlet, now playing two machines, doubling the junkie interest in hitting a special large payoff or bonus spin round. Most of the time when she came out to Vegas to visit in the past I would let her spend the video slots time alone at some place like Circus Circus where she could load up on all the free booze and entertainment her hit it big mentality could handle without having to sit there myself on some machine half asleep, going from ten dollars down to three, then back up to eight, never really winning, never really losing, sort of just playing along with everyone else who did not want risk anything, but still demanded the same rights as the real gambling freaks that gladly put their homes, cars, and lives on the line in deseperate chance the odds might fall in their favor and as all the new buildings on the Strip can attest, most of those starcrossed dreamers fail terribly.

It takes about five minutes for the novelty of the video slot machine to wear off even though within an hour I have turned five dollars into forty somehow, through six or seven machines. My mother does not stay on any one game for too long, after ten or fifteen minutes unless she is winning fairly large amounts, say like fifteen dollars, the narrative content of the video slot machine start to feel mundane, so time to refresh gambling need by moving to another part of the penny heaven as it is called at this particular casino. Where convenient little slips of white paper with magnetic strips keep track of the amount of money won or reclaimed at the end of a session. Plenty of paper strip being printed with my mother around, ADHD has set in once more as she bounces around like a hammered thirteen year at some junior high school party, everything feeling fresh and new, unfazed by their actions and demeanor only intent on making the fun last as long as possible.

I keep winning, as my mother belts down another white wine, pleading to stay for another hour and a half, damn already been here for two hours, look around all these other people are paralyized in their chairs, chain smoking, sipping on burbon and water, this is better than television, no one bugs you, handed a refill every twenty minutes, get a ride home from the casino and everything is well, heck, join the casino rewards club, eat at TGIF's for free every week, damn near everyday. This last prospect has my mother in a state of eternal bliss, an eternity of resturant food hamburgers, no pans, dishes, or washing, is Vegas great or what?
Total kid mode now with mother, as I am falling asleep, burn out from being overworked, I am the complete buzz kill as she tries to intentally lose all her credit, about twelve dollars worth, my net gain for the day ended up being over twenty dollars and for not even trying it ended up being not much more than pressing a button, repetitive action without reward or consequence, got a free water, no booze, someone else had that market cornered at the moment. Luckily, in the end my mother won a large bonus that put her about back to even, enough, put down the wine, pick up the stroller, get out the wheelchair, and gather your instincts, time to put the funbox away for another couple of weeks, so here is the great new bonding venture between mother and son, to be honest I probably learned more about her and shared more about myself today with her, than in the previous 39 years of my life, at first it felt weird, almost embarrassing, but she is human like everyone else, has been through every emotion in the book, dealt with adversity, oppression, success, and failure, somehow still standing through it all. At least I did not wait or give up, even though so much time has past between us and my emotions from events in the past are not fully forgotten, finally being ourselves instead of parent and child was a complete wonder, there will no doubt be more trips down to penny heaven as well as more chances to learn more about someone who at one point in my life was more a mystery to me than the next person walking down the street.

The Highway to Hell: Novelty and Megadeth

As things go in life, so does the rapid arrival of new developments when working on other projects as would be the case tonight, when called upon for a promised favor after a long week of working which included multiple nights of staying out till 6am with the client. Tonight, Megadeth, the heavy metal thrash organism piled inside this small corporate conditioned space known as the House of Blues. Since, I got the tickets for free as a favor from a friend in the biz, arriving at any sort of appropriate hour did not have quite as much magnetism, as if I had pay for the tickets with my own money. First thing, all ages show, the concert started quite early, roll in around 9pm expecting Megadeth to have just gone on the stage, yet being fashionably tardy it becomes apparent that me and my friend have missed pretty much the entire concert, however within this four song mini set to be witnessed, many great details about people, the music, and the band begin to appear in grotesque and nostaligic manner.

The music venue is crammed with hundreds of Megadeth fans who came to headbang and occasionaly push the random stranger around on the venue floor in attempt to feel something that has long since left the character of the concert goer which is mad inescapable violence. Does this have to do with all the heavy security in red shirts manning the edges of the arena floor crowd to keep them from slamdancing into each other in fear of some potential law suit or is it the prevailing feelgood nature I seem to be recieving from people who excuse themselves as they pass by me in cramped quarters. Where is the violence, the rushing of the stage into a swirling mass of humanity that need to beat each other into sweaty, messy, and battered pieces of human flesh who leave the concert with a feeling of release, redemption, and a primitive bond amongst strangers who lead all sorts of varied lives yet embrace the angst, the repression, and the animal locked in cage feeling living in modern society can create. Something is missing here, while the happy and fat come fleeing from the downstage pit area where a few strung out souls slam into each other like male animals during mating season, the purpose, the reason, genetic in foundation, environmental in action.

While getting nostalgic, I can recall shows where fans would crawl through urine, fire, and chaos to reach the epicenter of disaster where a tsunami of aggression awaited anyone with the desire to jump in and take the punishment of the overall vibe from the people, the music, and the scene, no escape clause here, just running into others out of pain, anger, and frustration, a giant carthatic orgy, street fight in the stands, and at the end of it all, most people did not take it personally, the violence was accepted, the broken limbs, bloodied clothes, a reminder of dealing with the 80's and all the bullshit neo-conservatism laid at doorstep of a teenage generation that had been taught very little, if only to be number one and to hate everyone else who attempted to take that title away. Fair enough, so why not beat each other into ground beef, feels alright, no wars right now, none at least totally visible on the horizon. Dislocated shoulders, black eyes, and head tramua, no law suits, no crying, no problem. All this has dissapeared tonight with this crowd who seems happy enough to stare at some middle guys playing a genre of music they helped establish to a crowd of youth who never got the opportunity to feel the freshness of the music, if only through idiots like myself who get to gloat over being a little bit older, wiser, and most often debilitated from my life experiences, not much of a reward, wisdom sure, but to rub in the faces of these teenagers only turns them off.

Not that they did not give themselves a fair shake by attempting to get a pit going down on the floor, those same old people, the one guy with the number one finger flowing around the moshpit like some bobbing bottle in the water, heading in any direction the current would take him, as well as the one guy who just kept on going, running into people no matter how long the show went on, continously falling to the floor, as others kept lifting him back toward his next target.
Good to see some brothers in attendence as well, cause back in the day, most were homed in on upon the racist skinhead crowd which cause tremendous amounts of division between pit members, skin heads, and screwballs like myself, anytime the racist skins would start in on a brother in the pit, fights soon followed, a charge against small mindedness, hate, and outright prejudicious, but thankfully tonight the brothers mixed it up without any kind of debate, if only between the bouncers and the brothers in the mosh pit, one bouncer in particular who could grasp the concept of people beating themselves up for no good reason, serving as a corporate barrier to having any fun, this long arm of business justice only reflected a larger government type of beast desiring to control how people live, keeping the cities safe, making sure you do not hurt yourself, big brother taking control, so the bouncer made sure to give all the moshers a nice extra hard shove back into the center of the vortex when necessary, but also had the power to toss people out of the show when they expressed their personal disagreement with his behavior by running full speed and then jumping into his body, so the politics of life, as well as the politics of the modern moshpit.

Not much life in the band or the pit, like an engine attempting to turn its over in the cold weather of winter after a week of inactivity, Dave Mustane and his crew felt like they were playing at half speed, maybe it had been about twenty years since I last saw Megadeth but they seemed so lethargeic in comparison to the rapid nature of everyday 21st century life, which is true but as is almost anything today, in the instantaneous nature of daily existence, can't blame Megadeth for that one and in fact if you were to read some of Dave Mustane's lyrics you would find him to be someone who has a keen sense of observation of his environment that happens to be the foundation of his music, probably more like the inspiration, so not to write off them off, but having a history with the band as far as listening to them goes, the transcendence through the decades has missed, which could be due to my frumpy old clouded idealistic nature versus the molting of a few new generations of music listeners who have been offered less and less opportunity through channels of new artists to take chances, to get involved, and say what is on their mind, and for those who appear to be talking in this cyberspace galaxy, they did not get much proper schooling on what is going on around them, only in developing content to invent new dramas and tragedys that have nothing to do with the human condition right now.

They played Peace Sells, But Who's Buying and there was a bit of comfort seeing so many young kids singing the song word for word, hoping that they had understood the intented message of living in a virtual global warzone, jeez, why not, aren't some these teenagers of military age, possibly ready for deployment for Iraq or Afganistan (sp?), maybe some have already been there and back, for those people this song I would think has a more definite personal meaning, in my teens, the first Iraq encounter was more like an idea, a possiblity, a movie news reel with digital effects, today, when I run into twenty somethings who have spent a few years in combat overseas, I like to buy them a few drinks in hope they will share some of their experiences, how these things have changed them, and overall their perception of coming back home, which would be a entire another thread, so stick to the point, the thrash fest starts to peak with a old school style grand finale moshpit that would make even the most harden needle junkie skinhead want to rise from the dead and get into play. The fact the venue had their dogs out there as some armed guard presence, this tisk, tisk, tisk, don't play too rough now children okay, that is the kind of garbage which had me beating people in the first place, all the control, all the messaging, the brainwash, santize, cleanse, fold, and manipulate, wasn't their enough in school, at home, and on the television, why should I have to deal with it at a punk rock, thrash metal, or rap show.

Authority shutting the door on a good time, half the reason the music we listen to is created or maybe was, today is for the money, yeseterday, for the fame, and for some the sheer ability to generate instant rebellion in a million souls, could make one feel like a king, until the curtain came down or the media, the government, luckily the current adminstration has nothing to fear while many of the patrons made their way out of the show before the end of the last song in order to avoid having to wait an extra ten minutes at the conclusion of the concert as everyone else gathered what was left of their mind, hearing, and abuse. Time can be such a strange thing when in the middle of an era who has nothing but fighting on their mind, no internet, cheap drugs, or multi-hundred channed television, someone forced us to pay attention to the propaganda then to react to it, against the world, against our parents, against each other to the point where killing became the desensitized entity that covers the news twenty four hours a day, the body counts of Washington DC in the 80's felt like something, all the numbers from the Vietnam War, all the wars, today we try to give every single military solider an identity, then spend the rest of the time making murder seem like taking out the trash, so a family must suffer the loss of another human being, fuck where have I gone, off the rails again.

Novelty, Megadeth supercedes novelty they have been engrained into it by my generation who was influenced by the baby boomers who could just not let go of seeing Elton John, The Who, or the Rolling Stones one more time, so now has come the resurgence of Megadeth, The Pixies, and Public Enemy who have now become my generations Eagles, something played on a predictible list of Ipod listeners that were cooler than the other kids in school, who knows what they all do now, some successful, others dissapeared, and the rest fell into the middle of the bell curve where no one really cares about their existence on any level what so ever. So my big problem today has to do with all this retroism if that is a word, coming around in music I embraced like some naive fool as my own, now nothing but retreads for a new generation, both of us suckers as the aged rockers head back stage after taking their final bows, shirtless, in skin tight pants, looking for the same rocker groupies who are now my daughter's age, and were the same high school wonderfucks that went to the shows when I was a teenager, that is why even today, the bands of old hit the road to feel some of that yesteryear, from the stadiums to the nightclubs, day in, day out, from the drugs to the athletic trainer, moving in a never ending circle that offers nothing but re-runs from adult theme films where clothing trends and hair dos only seem to change.

After the show, I went with a friend who wanted to watch a rock cover band of which he somehow knew some of the musical players. Cover bands are the pinnacle of self indulgence this human like jukebox, according to the lead singer would play any song if written on some form of dollared amount, say a five or a ten for example, sounds easy enough, give them some cash and they will whip up their best version of Paradise City, maybe even Telegram Sam if prodded with enough financial incentive. Whenever I hear a cover band today, I think of the high school dance, oh come on, play Just Like Heaven and get it the fuck over with, need some help in the getting laid dept. with this girl from English class, either way my personal affinity for cover bands depends on booze and narcotics, why lie, the more of the two, the better the idea becomes, a simple Highway to Hell, transitions into Smoke on the Water. The band themselves looked like a bunch of guys who knocked some women up, got married, then just packed it in or never felt the need to give it one last shot at creating something unique, which today seems like an impossiblity thanks to the internet, but why stop trying which to some point I think most artist have, but another time. Rather drink down eight dollar beers pretending to be entertained for two hours while this band goes through the motions of playing Led Zepplin's Heartbreaker, extended solo and all the trimmings, the string bending, grimaced face, arched back, rocker poses, living in the moment, living in the past of something at one time perfect, but only now mere a statue gathering more bird shit stains by the day, but the general public loves it and goes in a mild state of hysteria as rail thin heroin addicted guitarist in Herman Munster Boots falls into a dream like state of Jimmy Page orgasms, almost possessed as the lighters come to life and the occassional drunk odd ball rushes the stage with devil horned fingers, leaning back attempting to take it all in one last time before having to check back into work in the morning.

Pretty much run of the mill the rest of the night, with more solos and more people plopping down in front of tables to pass some time singing along to hits of the past slowly dissolving away into the ash of rock and roll history that the wind quickly sweeps up into the air and dissapates like weekday motor traffic smog, building up slowly over time into something more caustic, more damaging, and fatal, something invisible but reducing the population, reacting with negative effects, wearing down into a translucent being, hollow, without anything to offer, a golem under the control of those who want customers, not questions, look for bigger numbers, not larger ideas and will melt down the next two generations into marinara sauce if the elders as well as the youth of this planet do not do something to change it. It's the Highway to Hell, follow it.

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

Dancing Daze Are Gone Again Part 2

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Heart of Glass

Somehow the days have slipped by spinning in this vortex of experience wrapped amongst the subcultures of life that have no real definition or tangible existence if only like portals of time appearing at moments in time, so quickly erased by the morning sun bleeding through light colored curtains, out of focus Las Vegas strip hotels. I have to be somewhere, takes a bit of time to work through the fog of uncontrollable excessive behavior that responsiblily clings to me like burning jellied naplam eating its way through the skin into the marrow of my own sanity. Already late for work, might as make head down to the production room to await the questions, the curiosity, and semi constant pleads to discuss the events of the previous night.

Though, it seems the bigger question on the minds of those who know a bit about my private life are wondering how my recent breakup with a girlfriend of ten years is effecting me physically and mentally. As if there is suppose to be some sort of mental breakdown, all this emotional puking that has become so prolific on the Hollywood big screens. Maybe it might have something to do with how people have handled their own breakups in the past, admittedly, the couple of breakups in my younger twenties felt more like inner body organ dissections without all the drugs and knockout gas, yet now nearing forty, the entire thought of getting worked up over someone who I more than likely appeased, played along with, and looked the other way with a genuine streak of juvenille behavoir that would more than likely never change, a human being who would rather avoid the harsh realities of adulthood to return to the safe naive state of childhood.

Everyone seems so shocked casual reaction to the dissolution of my last relationship. Agreed, it was ten years long, nearly a quarter of my life, but after already fucking up the first thirty years what was another time, if only to come to a point of realization that after having paid for all my actions of my twenties, marriage, children, and divorce along with a thousand other demons swirling around in my head and not that those demons have be completely come to terms with in any form. I am now old enough not to dwell on the actions of others, but to acknowledge what needs to happen in my life in order to make feel worthwhile or to have someone in it who can connect with all the variety, depth, and aptitude that has been compressed into this grey matter of my brain, no more pretending, just to get regular sex, somewhere safe to layup in until I could get my shit together, and falling into a cruise control mentality of not caring wrapped up in a little package of playing like school grade children.

The breakup did not bother me, just the reactions of the people who felt the need to console me offer some sort of advice or empathetic stories that might make feel a little less devistated when in fact I am very relieved in order to get my own life into gear, without having to waist my time encouraging a person who more than content to never amount to anything than average. But back to the sob crew, why do I really care how this relationship ended, she broke it off with me in a manner I expected that she might be hoping for some emotional sort of reaction from me, tears, saddness, some form of emotional leverage she could use to put the final nails in my head for always being one step ahead of her when all she ever wanted to do was be right and have the last world, while waiting for mommy and daddy's checks to roll in. I just told her I did not care, had no feelings at all, after spending the last six or seven years maybe more totally devoid of any sort of real emotion at, this person I felt was never capable of genuine emotion too scared to give up control of herself for reasons she will have to dump upon the next person she looks to twist into her little playhouse.

As for me, most of my friends were fairly shocked about my uncaring attitude in regards to this breakup, why, I had no longer any desire to invest energy into someone who offered nothing in return who soaked up their time in petty endeavors in order to avoid taking on any real challenges. I am actually relieved this mind, this heart, can be free again, can not feel trapped or beyond relation of anyone on the planet. There are so many people who have great things to offer, personality goes a long way, but for plenty fear of rejection scares it out right from them leading to a narrow calculated, logical, but moreover insane frame of mind. My real smile has returned and after meeting someone who I could connect with made me feel so new, so reborn, like a teenager's first kiss, so innocent and so new, beyond all the pornography, debauchery, and drunken college sex years.

My heart is not of glass or stone, either angry or fragile, just pumping with blood and the knowledge to when to walk away from something, forgiving, looking forward to the future and something more of a brief kick in the ass to get at the things that I really want to which do not include living some comfortable life with someone who is afraid of me and does desire to have anything to do with me in any capacity, sleeping their life away, a fate not for myself. At lunch, local bar, a friend from the past who is a cocktail waitress attempts to employ some sort of sympathy tactics after the explainations of how this break up went down. Why bother, is it ultimately necessary to have this gross endeavor of closure, true there have been a few days when the sadness might have gotten to a point which made me feel suicidial, off to binge on drugs, or just put a gun to my head, but why, what is the point, I have been given my life back, a life I should have reclaimed many decades ago.