"This old town's filled with sin
It'll swallow you in"-Gram Parsons, Sin City
I'm headed to Vegas over the next few days with my buddy Pete for my last "guys trip" for the near future. I'm guessing Mrs. Herb won't let me get away with many of these after little Herbie arrives.
I will try to post a couple of times while I am out there on my activities.
Stay tuned.
UPDATE NUMBER 1-"How you know god hates you"
My buddy Pete works the night shift (he says he fixes trucks, but I'm pretty sure he's a hooker). The goal for him on a 6:45 AM flight would be to get as much sleep as possible since he only got out of work a few hours before and therefore hadn't slept in almost a day. Unfortunately, God hates Pete and he made that clear when he put in motion the events that started our Vegas trip.
At 5:00 AM we cleared security and made a bee line for the in-terminal restaurant for some breakfast. Though he protested vehemently, I finally convinced Pete it was a good idea to have one bloody mary before we got on the plane because it would help him sleep.
Three double bloody marys later we were shitfaced and playing NFL Blitz 2000 in the airport arcade. It's funny how time flies when you are loaded at 6AM playing video games of yesteryear. Frankly, I'm surprised we even heard the announcement over the loudspeaker "This is the final boarding call for Herb and Pete for flight 1297 to Last Vegas". The good news is, we did make it on the plane. The bad news is, the flight was full and we couldn't find two seats next to each other. I hate this scenario but with no options we settled for two open middle seats because they were in the first two rows. I figured hey, I might get stuck next to a man with avian flu and a woman selling avon, but at least I'll de-board quickly.
This philosphy worked out fine for me, but not so much for my sleep deprived friend. He got stuck next to a John Glover look alike and John Candy's character from "Planes Trains and Automobiles" who had both somehow managed to drink even more than we did at that early hour. Even better, they had no intention of letting Pete sleep. For the duration of the flight they argued over his head about who made more money, who owned more land and who fucked more flight attendants (that one went over almost as well as a bomb joke). But hey, at least they were nice enough to buy him about a dozen drinks which he reluctantly consumed to ease the pain.
"Want a drink baby or should we skip it and move right to the forward lavatory loving? "
I don't know why, but I took some sick pleasure in watching them torture him. Every half hour or so he would turn to me and mouth the words "dude, I'm fucking annihilated. These guys are insane!! HELP". But I offered no such help. You see in my mind, you don't start a trip to vegas with nap time and cookies and a lovely bed time story from the stewardess. You start it by priming your liver for a weekend of debauchery!
Pete's only reprieve came when the crew shut them off. Apparently some of the other passengers were less than pleased when "Lionel Luther" started passing around his cell phone to show everyone pictures of his girlfriends Vagina (personally I felt it was very thoughtful of him to share. The man was beaming with pride).
When we landed the three of them stumbled off the plane and mumbled a goodbye. It's now 10:30AM Pacific time and I'm traveling with Dudley Moore from "Arthur". He can barely walk. His eyes are crossed. He is shouting obscenities in the airport like "Get me to the fucking casino" and "I wanna see some tits dammit!"
We haven't even gotten our rental car yet. This is going to be an interesting weekend.
Update 2-"Viva Las...something..what?...I'm hungry"
"Suddenly, everything has changed..."-Wayne Coyne "Death Anxiety Caused By Moments Of Boredom"
I have a theory for finding my namesake whenever I am in a foreign city. My theory is that if you ask a person for it that is currently performing a job function, i.e. a bartender, cabbie, or doorman, you know they aren't a cop. It's worked pretty well for me. In Aruba I actually wound up getting it off of my scuba instructor. All in all, the theory has served me well and I fully intended to apply it in Vegas as soon as I got to the hotel.
The first person we asked was the bartender at the Golden Nugget. After striking up a meaningless conversation I went for the kill. "Er, ahm, excuse me,....are you the type of bartender that can help a guy find things?". "Sure", he said "You're looking for hookers right?". Yeah pal. I'm looking for hookers. I didn't notice the 200 Mexicans handing me flyers along the strip, or the giant billboards that read "Direct to your room in 1 hour", or the trucks driving along Las Vegas Blvd with 20 foot photos of women in lingerie offering "the best parties in town. I really need your help on this one. Obviously this guy was no use to me. When I explained to him what I was really after he said "Geez , gosh, I'm not sure" and gave me a look of complete moral indignation. Hello, you work in a fucking casino!!
My next step was to try Freemont St. If you have never been to Vegas, Freemont st is the old downtown area. Everything has been kept in that vintage 1950's Rat Pack style. You can almost hear the sounds of legs breaking in the alleys and showgirls screaming for help from Sinatra's hotel room. Actually, it's pretty cool. They have light/laser show on a giant canopy over the street (which is blocked off) that really lends itself to pharmaceutical assistance. After striking out with a couple of street vendors and a concierge, we decided to break from routine and ask civilians. We tried a couple of young hippie types but they smelled us and said they "could smell capitalism on us" and therefore were un-trustworthy. Our next mark was a homeless guy with dreadlocks and no teeth.
He told us that regretably he didn't have it with him but that we should follow him down the street and he could help us out. Again, if you haven't been to Vegas, a walk down the street is a very risky endeavor. One block can mean the difference between Mandalay Bay and Manforcedtobe Gay so I was pretty nervous. Pete was still in a haze from the plane so he wasn't worried, but as the glitzy hotels vanished and the all-night-piercing-shops increased, I started to get concerned. I said to our escort, "excuse me sir, where exactly are we going". He pointed to a dark alley between a parking garage that had no cars and a row of dumpsters. I decided right then we should go but before I could dismiss him I noticed what I thought was a can't miss opportunity. A man was standing on the corner with a handwritten cardboard sign reading "Smoke Shop" and an arrow poining to the right. I figured this was my lucky break. So I dismissed our tour guide with a modest 5$ tip (a thank you for leaving us with our wallets and virginity) and approached the man with the sandwich board. "Do you know where I could find something to smoke?" I asked. "Like what he replied?". "A little green if you could" I said. "Geez" he said "that's really tough to come by here.... You want some crack?". I was stunned. This was officially the first time I had ever been offered crack. I puked in my mouth. Then I think I pissed myself a little. All I know is I started running and I didn't look back. Safe to say the lower depths of East Freemont are not a safe place for your average white bread tourist.
After changing my undies, we continued our pursuit and fortunately our luck changed quickly. And boy was I glad because I only brought 4 pairs of skivvies. We finally found our goods through a bartender with giant breasts outside of the Mermaids Casino on Freemont. The lady in question provided us with our wares and we were on our way, but not before this slutty siren of the strip gave us this cautionary bit of advice "go easy. that shit will fuck you up." I found that pretty laughable. How could I take that seriously? I've smoked just about everywhere in the Eastern Hemisphere and good is good. I can handle good. I can handle great. A dimebag of ragweed from Vegas was no match for Cheech and Chong. So we bought two.
Well, we couldn't handle it. For the next four hours my friend and I stumbled around old downtown without a clue as to what we were doing. We were in big trouble. Our conversations were limited to "dude...I'm fucked" and "where the hell are we" It took us an eternity but we found our way back to the Golden Nugget and the safety of our room where we both took turns having panic attacks and gorging on potato chips. Our trips' destiny had been forever changed. All on a half a "J".
Up next:Hoover Dam
Update 3: "Where can I get some Dam bait?"
Fueled by an hour at the all you can eat breakfast buffet, we headed out to Boulder city to see the 9th wonder of the world, The Hoover Dam. I've seen the Dam before when Mrs. Herb and I went to Vegas, but Pete wanted to check it out. Plus we had notions of finding peyote and going all "Lizard King" in the desert for a few hours. Problem was, we didn't have peyote. We just had that ridiculous angel-dust-laden weed we bought on the strip the night before. So we twisted one up and smoked on the way.
By the time we got to the Dam we must have looked like a couple Iraqi soccer players reporting to Uday Hussein after a loss. We were mute and terrified. This was some powerful shit and there were just way too many tourists around. Our entire trip to the dam lasted less than 30 minutes and at least two thirds of that I think I spent trying to park the car in the garage. The other 10 minutes consisted of us trying to purchase a water at the snack bar (complete failure) and a short walk across the Dam itself with Pete peering over the edges and me defecating in my pants (I'm terribly afraid of heights). Realizing we were outmatched we retreated for the relative safety of the Lake Mead Marina. We had the thought in our minds that we might rent jet skis and cruise around the lake. What we did instead was buy a bag of popcorn and feed the mutant carp that inhabit the marina. If you haven't seen it before, check out this youtube clip. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQlRjF6L8nY . Thousands of the largest goldfish you have ever seen swarm this dock looking for handouts like welfare recipients. It was enough to keep us mesmerized for a good hour.
And that was it. That foray sapped us of all our energy. We headed back to Freemont St and realized our visions of a trip filled with double downs and double D's had turned into a much more docile affair. The rest of our vacation went quite similarly. Sunday we spent 10 hours sitting in the same recliners (they were really comfy) inside "The Dome" which is a sports bar/sportsbook inside the old school "Plaza" hotel and casino.
We ended the vacation the same way we started it. Shit faced at an odd hour in a hotel bar. All in all we had a great time and looking back, the powerful weed may have robbed us of a few "Swingers" moments, but in all reality it probably saved us hundreds of dollars and quite possibly our marriages as well.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment