intellectual properties

angels in sin city

las vegas. it’s such a tide pool of american culture:
the vigilent waste of money
the hedonistic mission of all who enter
the vain, the indulgent
the dancers, the singers,
the entrepreneurs, the retired,
the fat, the thin,
the ugly, the beautiful,
the hopeless, the dreamers,
the winners, the losers –
these exist in every other city,
but in vegas it all seems so exaggerated;
everyone seems on stage;
everyone wants to be famous.
the first time i went i hated it
the next few times were wonderful and i loved going back
and then the last couple of times i’ve just been sorta….meh.
over it.

this time i went with my mom,
because it seemed like a good place that was neither here nor there,
and she’d never been.
her plane was delayed and so instead of getting in friday night
she arrived saturday morning.
so late friday night i met up with my friend ivan
who was there for a wedding
and somehow, as vegas does,
we stayed up drinking until 7:30 in the morning.
as i walked out of the hotel bar, the bright desert sun greeted me with the reminder
that i would be up all day,
and i did the walk of shame back to my hotel room in my Bebe dress and smeared make-up.
i slept for 2 or 3 hours before mom arrived.

we spent the day on the strip, wandering the mazes of carpets and doorways and escalators and fake indoor skies
looking at lions and tigers and statues and gardens and fountains and mirrors and endless amounts of slot machines
getting reacquainted and killing time until the evening’s event: Cirque du Soleil: KÁ.
living in SF i know 1,000 cirque wannabes, including myself, and see a lot of such type performances. my neighbor teaches aerial arts. my friends are clowns. some of them perform with cirque. we put on our own little circus all the time, whenever we get a chance.
but still, walking into their amazing theatre, greeted by the usher-freaks, i was full of anticipation, and it did not disappoint.
the most amazing part of the show for me was the incredible hydraulic moving stages, which moved horizontally and vertically, creating floors and walls and slants and all kinds of awesome platforms for the incredible acts, the performers climbing and swinging and flying and moving around as if gravity did not exist for them as the stage moved beneath their feet.
i left the cirque wanting to stay, which was expected, but also inspiring.

we went to bed early on saturday, mom having travelled such a long way and me having stayed up all night the night before.
sunday we did more of the same daytime things – wandering the strip, shopping, soaking up the scene. if you’re not incredibly rich, drunk, or gambling away your life savings, vegas starts to get a little boring. fast.
we were enjoying eachother’s company though, since we only see eachother once or twice a year, and just wandered about.
we went to Madame Tussauds celebrity wax museum, and then sunday night, we went to the Stratosphere to see American Superstars celebrity tribute show, which featured Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Tim McGraw, Michael Jackson, and, because Elvis ‘wasn’t available’ (shouldn’t they have about 1,000 elvises??), we got Rod Stewart. they were all very good impersonators, although Xtina couldn’t hit the high notes, and the Michael Jackson impersonator seemed to me more making fun of MJ than impersonating him. afterward, we walked back to Circus Circus (our hotel – don’t stay there. it sucks.), and on the way we stopped at ‘The World’s Largest Souvenir Shop’, in which i found the coolest hat EVAR. i am not kidding. coolest. i was honestly suprised to find something so cool amidst the walls of coffee mugs and shot glasses and t-shirts. i’ll post a photo soon.

monday, we took a tour bus trip to the nearby Hoover Dam. the bus driver was a friendly guy from oakland, who commented on everything on the way from the car dealerships to the weather to the school system to prostitution. the Dam tour was interesting and the red rocks of the surrounding canyon are just amazingly beautiful. the water in lake mead, the reservoir, has been dropping 10+ feet a year, and according to the tour guide, in about 12 years there won’t be nearly enough water for everyone in vegas, let alone all those downstream (LA, San Diego….). on the way back the bus driver also pointed this water scarcity out, while noting that they are currently building about 12 new enormous hotels on the strip and that about 3,000 people move to vegas every month in order to meet the service industry demand. at 2 million people now, it’s america’s fastest growing city, with one of the nation’s smallest water supplies. it seems like the government in vegas is just selling their citizens out, knowing their won’t be enough water but taking money from developers anyway, letting them expand the strip and expand the city until the whole thing collapses, at which point those making money off the hotels and casinos will just take the money and run and several million people will have no jobs and nowhere to go. better get to vegas now if you ever want to see it. it’s possible it will be a ghost town in a decade.

monday night i took a late flight home and mom took the redeye back to michigan. outside of the drinking adventures friday night, it was a pretty tame weekend compared to what usually goes on for those under the age of 65, but it was fun and a nice way to spend time with mom. i’m not sure she ever wants to go back, and neither do i really….unless i join the cirque.

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