One of these days, I’ll meet Britt Daniel and apologize for constantly using his songs as titles for my blog. Maybe. Hopefully. Anyway.

I am home now, and for the first time since almost the beginning of the year, I can put my suitcase away indefinitely. All this constant travel has somewhat ungrounded me, and to top it off, a few days in Vegas, that place that always brings out the best, but also the worst, in me. I’ve closed my heart in so many ways but the enormousness of the human condition in Vegas never fails to open it up again. That place is fucked up, crazy, and now, to add to the insult, soulless. Those questionable attributes are a crushing blow to a gentle spirit like me (joke.) No, better to say that it is probably not the best place in the world for me to hang out in. I like to have fun too much, and I am too much of a romantic, and it doesn’t take much too put me over the edge. Too much being the key words here.

I used to really love Las Vegas. My grandparents moved there when I was in my early twenties, in the late eighties, and it was totally and completely a different town in those days. It wasn’t glitzy, it was seedy. It wasn’t about youth culture and money in those days. It was, I guess, just about the money, but in those days, nickels would do. The only smells on the Strip in 1989 were the smells of urine and the erupting volcano at the brand new Mirage. I remember that. Now Vegas smells of the propane blasting out of the backsides of a gazillion taxis. New carpet and chlorine. Garlic. Greed. It’s not a good combination.

I’m not sure what it is I am most scared of. Is it how Vegas has changed? Or how America has changed? Or is it how people, in general, have changed, or is it how they’ve totally stayed the same? Or is it how I have never changed? I am still the same as I was in 1989, except there are now a few lines on my face. I am still easily awed and easily crushed. Fucking stupid crazy killer city, making me think and feel so much. Thanks god I am back in Ocean Beach, where I can insulate myself from a world where it is so easy to throw myself against the sharpest rocks, just because it feels so good.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 12th, 2006 at 8:57 pm and is filed under How do I get there, from here?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.