Thursday, 20 March 2014

TRAVEL: USA PART 7 - LAS VEGAS






18/03/04: Las Vegas began life as a stop-off for people travelling to Los Angeles, which ensured a station was built there when the railroad was extended west towards California. The reason why people paused there was because of the availability of water, an oasis in an otherwise arid landscape. Indeed, Las Vegas means 'The Meadows' in Spanish.
Fate was again kind to its inhabitants, this time during the great depression, when the nearby construction of the Hoover Dam, the Union Pacific Railroad, and the efflorescent gambling industry, provided employment in a country that was short on it. Growth stalled slightly during the Second World War, although the location of Nellis Air Force Base nearby provided a captive audience throughout the conflict and the period immediately after. Perhaps more significantly, the seeds for the Las Vegas we know today were sown when local hotelier Tommy Hull built the El Rancho Casino in 1941, what could be seen as the blueprint for the casino/hotel hybrid that has come to symbolise Nevada's most decadent of settlements. The style back then was for mock Western-style constructions, but these were soon superseded by the Miami influenced ‘carpet joints’ that prevail to this day.
Back then 'The Strip' didn’t even exist. Downtown Vegas was where the action was, before they built New York New York, Luxor, Circus Circus, Excalibur, and all the rest. There’s still plenty of action to be had in Downtown Vegas but it’s been rebranded as the ‘Fremont Street Experience’. You may have seen this thoroughfare in the James Bond film Diamonds are Forever, whereupon Sean Connery is chased all around it in a fast car. This would not be possible now as the area has been pedestrianised and covered over with a cylindrical metal roof. The whole thing resembles the Bentalls Centre in Kingston, but on acid: lights flash relentlessly and the place won't shut up for a second. It is a 24 hour city in a very literal sense. You could lose days and nights here, should you choose to stay indoors, which is perfectly possible given the level of amenity.

Our breakfast reflects the opulence of our surroundings. I have the steak and mashed potato, which comes with a free side salad, a dressing of your choosing, and endless beverage refills, which in my case means plenty of juice and coffee. I say breakfast but really it's lunch. We slept in late to prepare ourselves for what’s been earmarked as our final fling, our last night of collective revelry before going our separate ways. That it is to take place in Las Vegas is fitting.
Mid-afternoon and we’re strolling about downtown, soaking up the vibe. M and C are keen to play at cards. El Cortez will do. They throw in $20 each for a session of blackjack, and it’s not long before N and I are digging into our wallets and joining in. An officious looking gentleman strolls over to see how we’re doing. I get the feeling that he’s suspicious of us. I’m actually on a bit of a roll – I used to play pontoon for jellybeans with my grandmother and aunt – and we’re taking full advantage of the free cans of beer that are routinely passed our way. M and N are out of luck, C has doubled his money, but I’m the real winner, leaving with $80. Buoyed by the experience, we go for a drink to celebrate, on me.
We return to our motel to freshen up. I have preserved a clean shirt for this night alone – a plaid number that I like to think Chris Hillman (of The Byrds) might have rocked back in the day. Our first destination is Circus Circus, a place of notorious mayhem, but by the time we get there the show’s over and it looks more like the vestibule of some suburban bowling alley, alive with nothing more than video games and one armed bandits. So we head back to The Frontier to catch up on our drinking and settle down for almost an hour with a lounge act called 'The Fortunes'. They play all the favourites: Dock of The Bay, Knock on Wood, Chain Gang. Their between song banter discloses this triumvirate of manhood to be from Coventry, England. They moved to Vegas some time ago, and the accomplishment of their act is testament to this.
Not feeling as drunk as we’d like, we head back to Gilley’s. It’s the same sort of crowd as before, although tonight they’ve got a mechanical rodeo bull set up. M and I are both game, and give it a decent go. It’s an odd crowd that gathers in Gilley’s. They don’t strike us as your high-city rollers or out-of-town types; it seems more a locals’ hangout. A sort of wild-west theme pervades. There are people wearing Stetsons and cowboy boots and there is line-dancing. In the name of transatlantic relations, I ask a random local if I can try on his hat. He says no, and in a manner that suggests that I shouldn’t have even dared ask.




19/03/04: N and I are due to fly back to San Francisco, while M and C plan on staying in Vegas for a few more days before they catch a bus to L.A. We head over to their new motel as a collective and share a final meal together. We then walk on down to Fremont Street whereupon N and I wave down a cab. It has been an honour to have been part of M and C's American Adventure and I don’t want it to be over. On our way to the airport, N insists we stop off at some warehouse so he can check out the price of lap-steel guitars. I don't have a problem with this but the music emporium in question lies alongside a major freeway and I’m left to ponder the impending difficulty of hailing a second cab while N pores over musical instruments.
And so it goes. Once N is done, we find ourselves stuck on the wrong side of the road with no apparent means to get to the other side. We successfully hail a cab but then have to dodge traffic to get to it. But we do, and my nascent fear that we might miss our flight soon dissipates.
By the time we land in San Francisco it is dark. The flight only took an hour, but the boarding and disembarking, and the train and the walk back to the Green Tortoise, wipe out the remains of the day. There is just enough time for a final fling down at Delirium, but it proves to be hard work. To liven things up I order in a round of tequila. Nathan reciprocates with another, but it is the proverbial straw and I end up throwing up in the toilets.




20/03/04: It feels strange, and slightly sad, to be back in San Francisco after our week on the road, but we have things we want to do. N wishes to return to Haight-Ashbury to purchase a lap-steel guitar, while I’d like to peruse the stock at Amoeba Records. We puzzle over which is the best route to take to Haight and decide to walk to town and catch what we can from there. We board a bus headed in the general direction, but it only takes us so far. It is very hot – too hot to be waiting around for buses – so we walk from somewhere near Mission to our intended destination. It’s a bothersome journey up steep hills, but we find our way to Haight-Ashbury and go about our business. Nathan purchases his lap-steel (after some deliberation) and I buy a couple or records: Weird War's If You Can't Beat 'Em, Bite 'Em and Marriage on the Rocks by The Amboy Dukes. The weight of Nathan’s newly acquired instrument demands that we get a taxi back to our hostel.

It’s a quiet evening, although maybe not as measured as it should be given we’ve ordered a cab to take us to the airport for 06:00 the following morning. We sink a few beers in Vesuvio, and another in the bar where John Lennon’s cinema-going buddy accosted us, grab a pizza and head back to the common room of the Green Tortoise. There we will end up talking politics with a savvy American until one o’clock in the morning, hanging on to the last fragments of a trip that’s ended too soon.

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