At 69

Yesterday was my birthday. I am so clotted with feelings about the age I am I will leave it be for a moment. Jane treated me for the day on the Strip. Vegas is in a valley surrounded by mountains. The mountains, from the distance, strike me as “false,” in that they seem or appear to be artist paintings or fake. Probably an atmospheric quirk but I feel as if they are stage sets. My point is that there are still stretches of unused desert land here and when we drove to the bus terminal it appeared as if lost in the middle of a tract. For a moment I felt lost in the great American West. I imagine the infrastructure of a big city still has not been installed but the strip has that quality to it.

We were smart and drove along the strip in a double decker bus with solar screens on the windows to protect the eyes. You can buy a pass for on and off all day long which we did ($7). Bus kiosks are stationed at every major casino or hotel. We began on the South Strip. The traffic in the morning was dense and we were glad for public transportation. We visited the Mirage, the Venetian and Caesars Palace.  In mid day it struck me I was in a Disneyland of a kind, buildings shooting up in baroque designs, an Italian campanile, a reconstruction of the Brooklyn Bridge, the Chrysler Building, the Empire State Building and the Bridge of Sighs, all of them apparently very accurate representations. Often I metaphorically rubbed my eyes for it is hard to visually digest this melange of styles and periods. The next time we go we will work it out that we see some of this during the day and at night when the whole place goes neon.

There is a side of the Strip which is scruffy and Coney Island-ish. Jimmy Buffett has a place here which reeks outside of cocoanut and probably his Tommy Bahama underwear — stay clear. It strikes me that the maintenance of these casinos is paramount given the wear and tear of public ins and outs, the 24/7 comings and goings. Forget the upkeep and thus falls Vegas. Imagine the flushing in any one hotel and you have think of the environmental impact of this blitz and bling. Given the economy, building still goes on as construction cranes peek in and out of other buildings. Restaurants are omnipresent, secretions squeezed from tubes. Traffic, as I said, is clotted and manic, not quite Manhattan, but steroidal. Into this glitzy world I spent my day.

We ate at the Carnegie deli which is not quite up to snuff as their fries were not Jewish delicatessen fries as I know them, which are crinkly cut so that the oils saturate all crevices; the Dr. Brown Cel-Ray was glorious as ever and so was the brisket and pastrami. The bowl of pickles and sour tomatoes were not available except for a stingy grouping of sour and half-sour pickles. My time has passed. Being 69 does that to you — not nostalgia, just a tinge of regret. Okay, nostalgia! I know you can never go back again, but what is so terrific about going ahead. After that overloaded lunch I realized that if eating Chinese food make you hungry an hour later eating Jewish deli takes you three days before you can once again feel the pangs of hunger. We moved on to the slots, part of Jane’s plan for me this sacred day, for I was vaginally discharged 69 years ago on 23 July 1940, a few months befoe Pearl Harbor. August was a bitch in the crib.

We moved on to the slots. We were both doing so so when I asked Jane to give me her last twenty as I felt I wanted to go back to the original machine that had shown signs of “promise,” for I got several “spins,” which is a chance to make additional money. In any case I played and sure enough I won a game for about $700 and then a spin for about $200, a total of about $900 and change; the bells going off, sending out whizzing noises, a very small contingent of players came to praise our good fortune. Oh, the delight watching numbers calculating your winnings rapidly scrolling up on the counter, Oh, the delight of hearing the chimes of gambler heaven. I told Jane to enjoy cashing in the gelt and to ask for 100 dollar bills just for the fun of it, crispies. Like Arnold, I’ll be back. In fact, I set to memory the location of this particular machine, for we are superstitiously wed for life. And for Jane her day was sweetened by this serendipitous surprise for her guy, really for us.

In Caesars Palace we passed once again the infamous Regis Gallerie, I think, with a flat screen outside its glitzied window display, with these words or something like it: “Dear Michael our friend, we mourn your passing,” while also re-playing a video of his visit. It was in this store that Jackson bought almost a million dollars of glorified shit in a spending spree that lasted no more than 45 minutes. I saw the show several years ago and realized the emptiness of Jackson and the grossly opportunistic  owner who was licking his lips as he knew he was catering to an all time schmuck. American business at its most grotesque. Jackson’s dead and the same capitalistic ghoul is still masturbating off his name. I imagine his having raucous sex with his bimbo wife and afterwards throwing a box of  tissues on her belly and telling her to wipe herself as the sheets might get soiled, for they are 400 count threads.

Vegas — lewd, repugnant, glorious, vile, empty, cheesy, fantastic, vulgar and the food is top notch. Get lost about what it is, just look in a full-size mirror.