Reboot My Heart Las Vegas!

Royal Flusher's Song Of The Day The Blasters - Dry River

Someday it's gonna rain
Someday it's gonna pour
And that old dry river
Won't be dry no more 

Yup, it's time to go to the river.

Every trip I take to Vegas has some sort of underlying theme beyond obviously winning money, gulping free liquor, and snarfing down cheap greasy eats (often covered with dubious-looking gravy).

As Springsteen writes, sometimes you just have to stand up and say, "Bring on that Wrecking Ball."

I think this is akin to the old cartoon that used to go around of the mouse flipping off the diving eagle just before it is swooped up in vice-like clutches.

My world has been shaken in many ways since the last trip with the serious illness of my mother. We took good care of her and she is stable and getting healthier. Longer term, we'll see. But it wears a guy down, being in flat-out panic mode for about 3 months straight.

And with a life event minor in stature by comparison, but still a big change, they switched our line up at North American Veeblefetzer. We don't make size 7 grommets anymore. We are now making the size 77 European sized grommets, which obviously, are metric. All the things I knew and loved about making size 7, size 8, and red sized 7 (for the Chinese) grommets is now thrown out the window with these new sized 77 grommets. All the procedures, and dies, are different.

As a result, I needed a break, now that mother is gaining weight and happy.

But I have this feeling that something is missing in my heart and I'm off to find it in the best place possible for such a spiritual pursuit.

Las Vegas.

And so it was that I set out yesterday from Flusherville Regional Aerodrome. They took longer than normal to wind up the elastic bands and we took off, and landed late.

Security was pretty backed up in Toronto for a Saturday night and I entered the line with only 40 minutes to go before departure. Good thing I'd bought a Subway sub (pizza with cucumber and jalapeno) before knowing how little time I'd have - otherwise I would have had to buy food from Air Fuckyou Canada, who knows about as much about customer service as tax authorities do. (In Canada, we have Revenue Canada for such comparisons. In the USA, its the IRS, of course. In Jamaica, they have the IRIE.)

On the flight I dozed, watched J. Edgar, and pondered how I could get back on an even keel. It seemed fitting that both J. Edgar, and Ed Wood were available on the entertainment system, considering Hallowe'en is coming. Throw in Boys Don't Cry and you've got a cross-dressing trifecta.

Listened to a few tunes on the way too, felt a little lift in my soul with some of the sounds. Blasters 4-11-44 is always a good gambling tune. And Dry River resonated with me somewhat.

Landed on time at the new Terminal 3. I did all carry-on again this time - 2 pairs of underwear, a tube of toothpaste, and a wifebeater, that's all I need for 10 days. My carry-on is actually a re-usable Wal-mart shopping bag and if it weren't for the toothpaste, it could double as one of those fancy lumber support pillows.

So I'm finally in Vegas (!) and its like there is no-one around. The Transportation area for limos and such was almost completely empty except for one guy, and 2 shuttles. He ordered up a limo for me though, and 10 minutes later I was on my way downtown.

A cool latin dance remix of the Doobies 'Long Train Runnin' was on, and I asked the driver about it. "It's good!", I said, articulately.

He handed me a burned CD, no envelope, just the bare CD. I looked to see who the artist was.

"It says '#2' on it."

"Keep it."

Nice! I already had a generous tip out for the guy so karma was in play already.

Four Queens is sold out (!) and they found a crappy room for me on the first floor. View was cement walls, the Nugget, and the tin roof of the employee outdoor smoking area. Window didn't open. It wasn't cleaned so I shlepped all my stuff back down to the casino and hit the King's bar.

One of the Mike's poured me a much needed, very stiff Absolut. It was so stiff, it must have had a Wal-mart lumber support pillow while it was waiting for me on the shelf. A water back, to fight off the Air Fuckyou Dehydration Canada dehydration.

Tried to punch up my free play (I have $80 worth, score!) and it wouldn't take. Tried again, it wouldn't take. Then I realized my bar-top had 80 credits on it already. I shoved some money in to claim that bitch and make it mine all mine and started to play.

Before long I broke the ice with a $65 win and pushed it up to 50 cents. I'd seen 3 Aces dealt twice already and third time was a charm with the four Ace poking it's head up for $400. No kicker, and I ain't complaining.

Cashed out, up $360 on the night - hey, with the $80 freeplay, that's my whole stake for tomorrow!

Went to the room, was hot as hell. How was I going to find my soul in a hot shitty room like that? Called down, no, no more rooms. They'll send up Joey Fattguy the engineer. Joey came up and even though he had an insulting made-up name, was really nice. He ripped into the AC ducts and concluded that the controls worked but the fan was 'fucked' (my words).

"So, the fan is fucked???"

"Yes sir," said Joey Fattguy.

He called down to the desk and then told me to shlepp down there and see Eileen.

I did and got moved to a room in the North tower with a spectacular view of the top of the canopy. Window doesn't open, but I can check the time and temperature atop Binions 24 hours a fucking day.

How am I going to find serenity in this room????

I went to sleep and had a fitful night, having dreams of changing grommet sizes.

I felt good about the win to start the trip though.

Maybe the dry river has a trickle in it.