Fat Tony's Family

There was supposed to be a good musical act at the IAC last night, so Pammy booked a table for us and a couple other ladies.  What is the IAC you ask?  In typical healthcare fashion, I hear "IAC" and think "internal auditory canal," but no, this IAC refers to the Italian American Club.  Dennis excused himself for the evening, claiming he didn't want to be the only guy at a table filled with women.  This upset Pammy at first until Dennis and I figured out why:  If Dennis wasn't going, that means he wasn't driving.  Turns out that after a couple years in Vegas, Pam is still afraid to drive on I-15.  Granted, I-15 is a crazy interstate, though I don't imagine it's any worse than Atlanta.  It's four to five  lanes, two express lanes, and a lot of on and off ramps.  No one entering the freeway ever seems content to stay to the right--they feel the need to jump immediately into the fast lane.  Consequently, there is a constant barrage of cars weaving in and out.  And Vegas traffic moves fast.  Never one to know fear, however, I told Pam I would drive.  Why not?  The road belongs to Taco.  We made it to the IAC without incident.

I'm not sure of the entire history of the IAC, but I know it involves Old Las Vegas and a lot of imported Chicago mafia.  The place still has a Godfather-esque feel to it, with its low lights, New Jersey-Italian accents, and full suited security detail in the parking lot.  The food was mighty tasty; the musical act was just all right.  There was no live band, so the singers sang along to tracks, which is, I learned, called track singing.  Funny, because when you're an amateur we call it karaoke.  I think if I'd dared to use the "k" word, however, I would have been immediately tossed from the club by Fat Tony.

On the way back I asked Pam if she wouldn't mind if we drove home via the strip.  I still haven't seen the fountain show at The Bellagiao, though I've seen the volcano at The Mirage a couple times.  What a nightmare of a late night cruise!  For some inexplicable reason, Las Vegas Blvd. going south was brought from three lanes down to one, back to three for fifty feet, and then back down to one lane again.  It was pure chaos.  I was forced to bust a few moves that, as a graduate of the Tom Sneva School of Safe Driving, I'm not proud of, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.  Pam said I was aggressive enough to be mistaken for a Vegas native.  Oy vey!  At any rate, all of that effort was to no avail--we only caught the last 5 seconds of the show.  O Bellagio fountains, I will catch you yet!

Pigs flew today when the weathermen announced that the high today was only supposed to be 91.  Taking advantage of the cooler weather, Pam, Dennis and I went out to the Clark County Museum.  It has a small indoor portion that gives a quick history of the area along with a lot of old junk and some really well done dioramas.  The biggest part of the museum is its outdoor collection of houses (original and a few replicas) that were moved on site to demonstrate the changing look and character of Clark County.

It starts with a ghost town and a bunch of old west wreckage scattered about.

There's also a nod toward the county's huge mining history.  Cars, trucks, trains....

The really fun part is the houses on Heritage Street though.  They're decorated with period furniture and (occasionally) peopled with creepy mannequins.  Very much out of period, the houses are also all air conditioned.  Big bonus.

  

By a strange twist of fate, the Candllelight Wedding Chapel, where Pam and Dennis got married nearly forty years ago, is now a museum piece.  It used to be on the northern part of the strip, near The Sands, which isn't part of the museum as it was imploded a number of years ago.  (If I remember correctly, The Venetian is now where The Sands was...maybe.  It's hard to keep track.  Everything gets imploded eventually.)

Let's end with a sunburst clock, shall we?

Just Call Me Hillary....You know, after Edmund Hillary...

I set out at 9AM this morning to conquer Mini Mt. Everest.  Mind you, even at that early hour, it was still 90 degrees and ever on the rise.  Below was about halfway up the peak.  I know it's hard to gauge the scale of thing.  I won't lie, though--it isn't huge.

A few other people were on the trail too.  When they got to the top they did weird exercise-y things like push-ups and other strenuous activities.  I was content to take pictures of the view.  In the larger scheme of things, the peak is in the southwest corner of the Las Vegas metro area.  Below is looking northwest from the summit.  If you squint you can see some bands of red, which are part of the sandstone layers that make up Red Rock Canyon.

The picture below shows my way home in every sense of the word -- eastwards.  If you're eagle-eyed you'll be able to spot a small water tower in the middle of the picture, slightly to the right.  That's what I look for to know that I'm close to home.  The only large building you see in this picture, also toward the right and back, is South Point Casino.  Being well off of the strip it caters to locals and is where I went for the Impersonator Parade.  A little farther over the mountains is my ol' Indiana home.

Looking due west, you get the idea of just how built up some parts of Vegas have become...and how identical it all looks when you start driving through it.  

However, southeast from where I was standing is a different story.

I know people make fun of downtown Indianapolis for its puny showing of skyscrapers.  I don't see that Las Vegas has a great deal more to boast about.  Given the city's population, the only downtown area of note is the strip that rises up out of nowhere.

From where I was standing, it's only about a 15 minute drive to the strip.  At the north end of the strip (left in the picture) you can make out the needle of the Stratosphere.  At the southern end the first casino you hit is Mandalay Bay.  In between the two: a hot mess of lights, tourists and slots.  

About five minutes from the house there is a peak that Dennis calls the Mini Mt. Everest.  It has trails to the top, so today I did a little bit of exploring in search of a good place to hike.  Apparently even Pam didn't know that it has a park attached to the back of the peak.  It's a lovely oasis that has a little bit of everything.

It even boasted some ugly wildlife.  Ugly jack rabbits.  The ground squirrels were too fast for me to photograph, and be grateful for it.  They're ugly too.  I saw some baby road runners as well.  Who knew those things even existed outside of Looney Tunes?!  Wile E. Coyote was, however, nowhere to be seen.

I did my exploring a little after high noon, which isn't an ideal time to trek up an exposed hillside.  It's supposed to be cooler tomorrow, so my plan is to return in the morning to conquer Mini Mt. Everest (pictured below).  See you at the summit.

Rained Out

The plan for this evening was to hit another one of the jazz clubs for open mic night.  We never made it out the door.  This may be a city that never sleeps, but it doesn't go outside when it rains.  I watched as the weathermen were able to report that something else besides sunshine and blue skies were moving into the area.  High winds, lightning, and 1.5" worth of rain had the weathermen's boxers all in a twist.  In all fairness to the ruckus, Las Vegas is prone to flash flooding even with very small amounts of rain.  There are no storm sewers, and the ground doesn't absorb anything.  On an slightly unrelated note, the houses out here don't even have gutters.  Within a half hour of the rain starting to fall, the news channels reported how several streets were flooded in over a foot of water.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again: this place just isn't quite right.

A 4th of Julius

One man's patriotism is another man's obnoxious behavior.  So it goes with fireworks.  Some of the younger guys in Pam's neighborhood set up an insane amount of fireworks this evening.

All of the cases that look like 24 packs of soda are some big boom fireworks.  The guys took it upon themselves to block off the street with some traffic posts that were stolen from a nearby road construction site.  As soon as the sun went down, the time was right for some large explosions.  We didn't watch much of the fireworks being launched from the strip.  On the contrary, I wouldn't be surprised if the strip watched us.

When it was all over, there was a huge mess left behind.  Being the fireworks bum that I am, though, I didn't stay to clean it up.  

All in all, it was a great show.  Being that I contributed nothing to the festivities, I feel like I got way more than my money's worth.  Happy 4th of July!

The Impersonator Parade

Maybe it's like a stamp in your passport, but I get the impression that once you're in Vegas, you're obliged to watch a certain number of impersonators perform before you're granted legal admittance.  Last night I checked off the big three--Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, and Neil Diamond.  I wouldn't have called Neil Diamond a part of the big three, but Vegas holds its own opinion.

The performers were all great singers.  I was particularly partial to Elvis.  The show was a little like concert meets Conner Prairie, which is to say that everything done by the performers during the show was done in character.  I suppose during any show a performer is self-consciously adhering to an act.  The odd thing about impersonators is that they are so obviously, self-consciously performing someone else's act.  I don't imagine that what I saw is anything like watching the original performers.  Rather, the impersonators represent the original on steroids, i.e., you have a Frank Sinatra who is trying to be more Frank than even Frank was.  I'm told that a lot of the performers have huge egos, and one wonders if their acts don't even reference an original act anymore; they merely reference the impersonator's own caricature.  It's very postmodern.

After the impersonator trilogy at the casino, we went to a dive bar jazz club just east of the strip.  The trio playing, made up of a drummer, pianist and bass player, were awesome.  They were joined by three lady bebop singers in turn, all of whom were also excellent.  A motley crew of musicians circulated throughout the crowd, and eventually Frank Sinatra from earlier in the evening appeared as well to play king of the club.

I met several of the performers throughout the evening, not really to talk to but just to shake hands.  Entertainer small chat centers on talking about other entertainers, present and absent.  Everyone is talented and beautiful.  All there is in the world is love, etc., etc., etc.  The vocabulary of the evening was very limited.  Jane Austen was never more prescient when she satirized every woman as being described as "accomplished."