Not now, I'm blogging.....

If I don't write some of this stuff down now, I'm probably going to forget it for good. I love road trips, and I love to drive for long distances of time without any break whatsoever....it is a very therapeutic activity and it helps to alleviate the constant electrobombardment that wreaks havoc on my brain whenever I'm stationary. So I get out and move, nonstop, to Barstow, California. The most redeeming quality of this town has to be the high desert sunrises that greet you at 6:30 on an August morning. The clouds are on so many different levels that the rays of rising sun puncture through them with these marvelous, heavenly beams of illumination that radiate each cloud with a different hue of yellow, orange, red, yellowish-red-orange.....All of this, of course, so that I can line up at the door of the courthouse at 6:30 in the morning and bog myself down in the quagmire of societal duldrums. These people sitting around me can rapidly fluctuate my emotions from mild amusement to depressed sympathy so effortlessly that my behavior becomes somewhat erratic and my desire to break for Vegas becomes insurmountable. We leave the past in the past as the Barstow DA shuts the door on what was clearly an open-and-shut case to begin with. The next stop on this journey is poolside at Caesar's Palace Hotel and Casino. Sunbathing under the fountains of this Roman palace, hearing cheesy covers of Radiohead being played through hidden rock speakers really brings you back to the days of yore, a time when life was care-free and mankind had hope for a better future. I'm talking of course about the 1990's.....and they will never be again. I will bet 5 dollars on the New York Yankees to win 7 dollars, and even though I wind up winning the bet, and A-Rod smacks number 500 on the same day as Bonds' 755--I am still happy that I did not wager more. The legacy I created for this trip was one of lucky blackjack hands and 16 dollar nachos with perhaps a little entertainment thrown in via Jerry Seinfeld and his opening act, Tom Papa. Both of them make me laugh thoroughly but do more to solidify my unwavering confidence in the supreme immediacy of gratification in this sinful city. Anything you want, you can have, most of it you don't even have to pay for. Spinning the wheel at the excalibur is also a joy that might await if you are lucky enough to get 4 of a kind....I waited my whole gambling life for that moment and to be able to get the double spin was making me wanna pinch myself, or at least bow down in the direction of Mecca. I don't know what they put in their drinks around there, but it CLEARLY is not alcohol. It is something though, because it made me think an English person had a really thick Boston accent. He did however point out to me that those accents are indeed quite similar in reality, a fact that I have always been reluctant to accept. Aside from degenerate gambling, I also do of course enjoy a good Vegas Buffet, and that is a classy and soon-to-be-classic way to ring yourself out, hurtling towards the San Gabriel mountains along with the unending hordes of Los Angelites that make that journey on a weekend basis. At one point I looked down at my smorgasborged buffet plate and notice that I had sushi right next to belgian waffles, a little syrup dolloped over both, and I thought to myself that Vegas might be the only place in the world that waffles next to sushi on a breakfast plate would not even cause the batting of an eye. Sushi is quite a treat in any form, and here in Los Angeles they are known to bake a good raw fish. LA in a day is always a challenge for anyone and I love to be able to step up to the plate on that one, maybe show someone a tar pit or two. I think I can even see Hawaii from here. In short, Mountains, Desert, Ocean, Sin, and Entourage, the Life, not the TV show. I visualize 756 and a lake with the bluest water the world knows in the very-near-to-come. People are either conduits or hurdles to your volition.....let it flow.