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constructions, but these were soon superseded by the Miami influenced ‘carpet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 it’s really 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.
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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