Crazy is On The Bus, Part 2: Can’t Get There from Here

Posted by on May 15, 2012 1 comment

Waiting Bus

It’s called the Strip & Downtown Express, or SDX. It’s the most direct RTC Transit route between downtown Las Vegas and the Wendoh Media offices, except it ain’t. Once I get to Town Square — the closest bus stop to the Wendoh offices on Post Road — I still have to walk through a shopping center, over a freeway and through an industrial park. It’s a 20- to 25-minute walk in the overachieving Vegas sunshine. My commute from Charleston and Rancho (where I catch the 206; I connect with the SDX at the Bonneville Transit Center) often exceeds 75 minutes, which kind of gives the lie to the whole “express” thing.

But that number doesn’t mean anything if the SDX isn’t running … which it doesn’t, by the way, between the hours of 12:30 and 9 a.m. So, if you need to be at a meeting at 9 a.m. — smack-dab in the middle of the time of day known in other cultures as “rush hour” — the SDX is not an option. You’re taking The Deuce.

On the off chance that Andrew Dice Clay is reading this, I should hasten to say that “The Deuce” isn’t the punchline to a joke about Immodium AD, but a double-decker bus that runs the length of the Strip, from Fremont Street in the north to Mandalay Bay in the south … and it stops in front of nearly every single property on the Strip, presumably so that tourists won’t be tempted to walk to some other casino to catch it. It’s a slow, noisy, and acutely aggravating ride, even in the morning hours. And this morning, for 60 glorious minutes, it was mine.

It wasn’t all bad. The view from the upper level of a Deuce is sensational — better still if you manage to get a seat up front, easy to do before 8 in the morning. I saw the D, the SLS, the LVH — our three “new” resorts, and also the least helpful Scrabble draw ever. I sat alongside tourists who tried to engage me in German and Japanese, and in the process, we learned that the word “hangover” is kind of universal. And I enjoyed the driver’s increasingly harried PA announcements: “Can someone on this bus help me to translate Spanish to English? No one on this entire bus knows Spanish? Seriously? Huh. That’s a … surprise.”

I realize that I’m close to being alone in this. If the RTC had a real need to run the SDX before 9 a.m., they would find space in the budget to do it. And if anyone else in this office was taking the bus to work — hell, anyone else in this entire fucking industrial park — I’m sure the RTC would take pity on us and install one lousy bus stop at Sunset and Polaris. But I fear it’s going to be a long time before the ridership numbers drive RTC to do these things, and by then I’m sure I’ll have given this up and acquired a car, or quit this job to take a new one as a Deuce-based Spanish-to-English translator. ¿Por qué, te preguntarás? ¿Por qué no?

LOOSE CHANGE:

  • Yesterday I tried to snap a few photos of the Bonneville Transit Center — as I said in the previous post, it really is a nice-looking facility. No sooner had the Nikon come out was I surrounded by four security guards, one of them on a bicycle, telling me to Cut That Shit Out or Else. I’m used to such behavior in Seattle — uptight repression is kind of a thing up there; we have a team training in it in anticipation of it becoming an Olympic sport. But I’d hoped that Las Vegas, a culture built on a foundation of ¿por qué no?, would be cooler than that. Nope, it’s the same deal. Oh, well, I was gonna call RTC’s public relations office anyway.
  • What’s with all the palm trees around the BTC and City Hall? I know we have to plant those stupid Bart Simpsons around the Strip so people will know we’re a resort town, but they have no place downtown; they guzzle water and provide virtually no shade. (Check out this piece in The Atlantic to learn how other cities are phasing palms out of their public planning.) I’m no gardener, but I don’t have to be to see that other kinds of trees can grow here — trees that look nice and provide much-needed shade in pedestrian areas.
  • I, um, I don’t really speak Spanish. I used Google.

Crazy is On The Bus, Part 1: Meet John Methhead

Posted by on May 11, 2012 No comments

De Deuce

He had a very individual case of the shakes. He shook his head by twisting his shoulders to and fro; at the end of each motion he would crane his neck to look in whatever direction the inertia had taken him. His hair was long, blonde and stringy, partially contained under a baseball cap with the insignia ripped off. He sat on the bench with his legs crossed at the ankles, clutching a burner phone, and he muttered the word “animals,” urgently, over and over again.

I didn’t have to clock his smile to know that I’d met one of Las Vegas’ methamphetamine achievers. Truth to tell, I didn’t engage him at all; I stood a full two methheads’ length away from him as we two awaited the arrival of RTC Transit Route 206, westbound from the Arts District to McNeil Estates. This fucking guy was about to get on a bus with me, 11 p.m. on a Thursday night. Excelsior.

As it turned out, he didn’t follow me upstairs — many of RTC’s route buses are double deckers, purchased from UK coachbuilder Alexander Dennis — and the ride back to my friend’s house was quiet and uneventful, which meant that I had plenty of time and opportunity to think about the month ahead. I have elected to get around Las Vegas using public transportation from now until June 15, at which time I’ll begin pooling my resources to buy a car. Any fucking sort of a car, as long as it moves and has working AC. Hubcaps desired, but optional.

I’m doing this to prove a few things. I’d like to demonstrate that it’s possible, for one thing. Four years into a recession that more or less broke this town, Vegas has caught civic improvement fever. All of a sudden, this city wants to be a city, as opposed to a city-themed resort. The city’s downtown core is being redeveloped by young entrepreneurs, most prominent among them Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh; I’m too lazy to provide links, so just Google his name along with “Las Vegas” and brace yourself for a flood. The people here seem to want walkable neighborhoods at long last, and the way you get those is by A) creating a concentration of businesses, residences and civic amenities that are worth walking to, and B) leaving the car parked at home. Or getting rid of the car entirely, as I did when I moved to Seattle ten years ago. I want to prove to myself, and maybe to you, that it’s possible to do the same in a town that was built for, and probably by, single-occupant vehicles.

I’ve been back in Vegas less than a week, but in that time I’ve taken the bus almost a dozen times. I’m already beginning to learn the pluses and minuses of Vegas’ sprawling bus network, and I’ll be weighing them in this bl-g under the heading “Crazy is On The Bus.” (If I’m to do this fuckin’ dumbshit thing in the heat of a Las Vegas summer, at least I’ll feel like Samuel L. Jackson while I’m doing it.) I hope to demonstrate to you that the first step to building a pedestrian-friendly town is by taking an actual step. Yes, right past the carport; that’s a good fella. The bus stop is only a few minutes’ walk from your door, and thanks to a certain heavily medicated vigilante, it’s completely animal-free. You’ll be fine.

LOOSE CHANGE:

  • If you can, get on the upper level of those double deckers. The view really is something else — and half the people who ride RTC either can’t or won’t navigate those stairs.
  • I’ll say this right now: The RTC is nowhere close to covering this town the way Metro Transit covers Seattle. The 15-minute drive from McNeil Estates to the offices of Wendoh Media, where I now work, takes 50 minutes by “express” bus — and there’s an additional 25-minute walk after I disembark. Glad to meet you, June heat. Please don’t cook my brain; I may need it for stuff.
  • I know I’ve ripped on this before, but … the Strip bus is called The Deuce? Seriously?
  • The Bonneville Transit Center is really nice. Once some of the empty lots surrounding it are built up with apartments — and once the gub’mint pulls its head outta its ass regarding Juhl — it will become a very highly-valued civic asset. There’s a bike shop inside the terminal! Cool cool cool.
  • I’m not too proud to take a ride home, or to the grocery store, if one is offered. I don’t think it’s a huge dereliction of my purposes. Are you, um, are you offering a ride? I got five dollars you can put in the tank.
    •

    Get it Get it: “Opus at the End of Everything” by The Flashbulb

    Posted by on March 9, 2012 No comments

    I love The Flashbulb. Benn Jordan, yo ti quiero mucho in a way that is largely platonic. Goddamn it, I wanna be entombed with you (and half the ladies from Mad Men). Your albums, electronic at their root, are blossoms of color and sound, but Opus at the End of Everything is an entire field of dazzling blooms. This is a soundtrack for catharsis, and you’ve delivered it at the precise moment I needs me some of that. I’ve only listened to the album once and I’m ready to declare it one of the best (mostly) instrumental albums I own. (You’ve knocked another one of yours out of the top ten.) It’s with great pleasure that I command my blog’s 17 readers to buy a copy of Opus for themselves — either in CD ($13.99) or as a high-quality download ($9.99).

    Thanks again, Benn. I’m putting the record on my iPod and phone now, and I will apply it to myself as needed over the next life-changing year.

    The Continuing

    Posted by on February 16, 2012 1 comment

    Because it will be

    Laugh, my friends. Laugh with me, laugh for me, because I dream your dreams. — Georges Méliès

    Today is my birthday. I usually try to write something about my state of mind on my birthday, but today the muse is stuck in traffic. Besides, the estimable Pj Perez wrote something wonderful about me this morning and I don’t want to put my fluffy miserablism in front of it. The man says I’m worthwhile, and seeing as he creates some great graphic novels and music — AND he owns his home — I’m going to defer to him today, tomorrow and possibly for the next six months or so. You’re a proper gentleman, Pj, and I ain’t just saying that to prove that I’m a good person because I’ve surrounded myself with people of character. But if y’all believe that to be true, I’m not about to dissuade you.

    My birthday, my birthday. I guess it’s customary to want things today, to expect tribute for having made it through another year without succumbing to a paint-huffing habit. As it happens, this birthday falls in the middle of a transitional phase for me, and I’m not entirely sure I know what I want anymore; even the spray paint and paper bag aren’t off the table. But I do know that I want my friends and loved ones — the people who walk, talk and clink stemware with me without judging my life or condemning my mistakes — I want those folks to feel as loved and supported by me as I am by them.

    I want you, savage reader (if you’re reading this, odds are good that you’re my friend — or an editor, judging the relative qualities of my “blogging voice”), to have a year of solid-gold inspiration and platinum card sexy sex. I want you to feel confident in your every action, comforted in your every sadness, lively in your every cell. I want you to be happy and loved as you’ve loved on me and made me happy, ya big lug. I want you to meet me on the street tomorrow, say “I’m good” and fucking mean it.

    That’s all I want for this, my 45th birthday. I’ve had some terrific birthday parties in the past and I’ll have some in the future, but today, I’m content to sit at the edge of the cake and dip an occasional finger in the frosting. You go ahead and swim in the love and glory. I’ll join you soon.

    Put a Deuce on it

    Posted by on January 9, 2012 1 comment

    The Bonneville Stop

    Tonight I’m riding one of the double-decker buses that traverses the length of the Las Vegas Strip,  which some enterprising 12-year-old at the Regional Transportation Commission have dubbed “The Deuce.” You can’t even say it aloud without wondering what Andrew Dice Clay is up to these days. That’s unfortunate business aside, the ride is a pleasant one — the coach is clean, the view from the second story windows spectacular (assuming you dig excess,  which judging from your embrace of “Jersey Shore,” you do), and the $7 fare — for 24 hours of unlimited rides — is a great goddamn deal. 

    I’ve no idea where I’m going to disembark, nor do I get exactly why I’m doing this; after all,  I used to live in this town, and neon is so much a part of me that I see it when I close my eyes. But I’ve never seen it from this angle before.  Ten feet of elevation changes much, and things haven’t been so great on the ground lately. The further away from it I can get, the happier I am.

    I’m sorry this is so terrible. I wrote it on my phone.

    Hello Apocalypse

    Posted by on January 3, 2012 No comments

    The Martians

    I’m at the Beat, enjoying side one of “Pretzel Logic” and the company of a few good friends. I just polished off a large latte and a breakfast sammich (tip: get in on a pretzel instead of a croissant). Talk has lightly turned to Gay Cthulhu, as it will.

    This is week two of an extended work visit. I’ll be in Las Vegas through January 15, writing for Vegas Seven and <redacted>. On January 16 I’ll help my parents to pack a moving van and move to Central Florida, but I’ll cross that country when I come to it. Today, I’m simply a guy who’s trying to get a running start on this new year, which too many people at least halfheartedly believe will be our last.

    I wrote a piece about the end of the Mayan Long Count Calendar for the 3WG show. It covered most of the points I wanted to cover regarding that topic: that our universe is cyclical, you oughta be good to yourself, and the very idea of “end times” is some silly bullshit. One of these days I’ll type it into this blog; for now it only appears in the red Moleskine notebook I carry with me. But I did want to pop in here and tell you that I believe in this year more than I believed in the last one, and I think many of you are feeling the same way. We might just will this thing into reality, like the Mayans did when they dreamed of the pyramids and the microwave oven.

    So, y’know, happy new year. I’m fairly confident that I’m using that phrase as an imperative. We’re going to do this one right, because we think we can.

     

    Three Wise Guys: A History

    Posted by on December 16, 2011 No comments

    TWG in DLV

    On December 28, 2011, I’ll fly down to Las Vegas to see my friends Dayvid Figler (that’s him in the middle) and Gregory Crosby (on the right). After we’ve had enough drinks and shot an acceptable amount of shit, we’ll lock arms and march on the P3 Gallery at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, where our friend Jerry Misko is currently the artist-in-residence. And at 7 p.m., surrounded by Misko’s art and probably less people than we’d hoped would turn out, Crosby, Figler and I will do something we’ve done many times before: We will date the same girl perform a holiday-themed spoken word reading. Dayvid will tell his hilarious and poignant Vegas stories; Gregory will recite his exemplary poetry and prose with great dignity and gravitas; and I’ll do whatever it is that I do. The full event details are here. And you should come if you can, because the odds are we’ll never do this again.

    Gregory, Dayvid and I first got the idea for a trio reading in 1995. At the time we were all popular Vegas writers in our individual ways. We greatly admired each others’ work, and we were good friends before velour abuse and dalliances with Nancy Sprungen drove a wedge between us. And we alighted on the idea of a winter holiday-themed reading because the three of us came at the holidays from entirely different angles: Jew, lapsed Jehovah’s Witness, 1940s movie buff. So we booked the outdoor stage at the late, lamented Enigma Garden Café through our dearly missed mutual friend Julie Brewer, and The Three Wise Guy was born.

    (We chose the “Three Wise Guys” name under the gun. We needed to give Andy Hartzell a name so he could get a poster done. We never dreamed that cheesy sobriquet, with its flip subhead “They came from the West bearing frankincense, myrrh and beer,” would begin the modern-day War on Christmas, which has by now claimed billions of lives. So, we’re sorry?)

    The Enigma reading was successful enough to make the Wise Guys readings into an annual event for a time. We chose a new venue for each reading: the Arts Factory, Jazzed, the Double Down Saloon, the Michael Graves-designed Flamingo Library, and Café Espresso Roma. Then, in early 2002, Dayvid’s law career jumped into overdrive, Gregory moved to New York, and I moved to Seattle.

    We took the opportunity afforded by the forced hiatus to work through our feelings of intense seething hatred towards each other. We haven’t quite gotten there yet, but the same team of lawyers and PR flacks that convinced The Police to reunite for the money got us to agree to perform one more holiday-themed spoken word show at the Griffin in downtown Las Vegas in December 2009.

    Well, as soon as we saw each other, it was just like old times. Gregory said, “Good for you, Carter, you’re not quite as fat as the last time I saw you.” I spat on his wingtips, and Dayvid ignored the both of us to sext on his Blackberry. We put on the show for a capacity crowd who thought they were getting a Pj Perez reading, then we threw ourselves under separate limousines.

    That brings us to 2011, and our last show. We’re doing this one for you, the fan(s). This is to be our Abbey Road; we want to make it the artistic grace note that compels you to say, “They were mostly pretty good, I guess. ‘Specially when Figler was up.” After this spectacular night — our first show on the Strip, framed by the art of a true Vegas success story, with a bar serving vodka-based drink specials named after us — well, we don’t know how we can top that, or if we can be together even one more time. Dayvid, Gregory and I are past the point we can do this for you and pretend that we don’t want to bite the curb when we have to talk to each other. We’ve even made provisions in our wills that we won’t be buried on the same continent together. We drew straws and I got stuck with Micronesia.

    So I hope you’ll come see us perform together on December 28 at the Cosmopolitan’s P3 Gallery, 7 p.m. I still love Dayvid’s and Gregory’s work, even if I’ve flirted with having contracts put out on their lives, and I gotta admit that my abject hatred of those bastards has spurred me to write some pieces good enough to shame them. And oh yeah: Mike Upchurch, the Emmy-winning writer of The Chris Rock Show, Mad TV and Mr. Show, is tentatively scheduled to perform a few minutes of opening stand-up that will surely illustrate how unprofessional and unfunny the three of us are by comparison. It’s going to be sick. Somebody might wet himself, and this time, it isn’t going to be me.