Chiquita's Got Something

Dad, Meridith and I spent late yesterday afternoon at Pavilions getting a good number of necessaries, not only to restock the fridge, but also in anticipation of Tuesday, when he and Mom will be driving out to Las Vegas and Meridith and I will be home.

Mom insists on making sure we have enough, which is fine, but I don't need every snack in the world. My diet's been solid ever since the middle of November, when I felt comfortable with what I was eating, knew there were plenty of nutritional benefits, and that my calorie count wouldn't be vast. But I did want eggs again, for Meridith's incredible deviled eggs, which is the only thing I require on Tuesday, and especially if Mom and Dad end up staying in Vegas a little longer.

I needed yogurt, but $1.29 for the Yoplait Greek Yogurt is far too pricey, so I only got one blueberry and saved the rest of my yogurt search for Ralphs, which didn't yield much else.

In the produce section, in one of the refrigerated cases, I found something intriguing. You know how some fruit juices, like Odwalla and Naked, are pureed to drinkability? Chiquita came out with something they call a "crushed fruit snack", combining a few different fruits. Initially, I saw strawberry and banana, but put that back when I spotted blueberry and banana, and got two. There's three containers of blueberries in the fruit bin in the fridge, and when I run out of bananas, it's only for half a day to a day, but I was curious about how this one compares to all the others out there.

Well, this is a more thoughtful fruit juice. Because these fruits have been crushed, there's a thicker consistency. You can taste the fruit and not just a combination of all the fruits. My fruit juices of choice come from Boltwood Farms, when they're low enough in price. I imagine that the price of the Chiquita crushed fruit snack won't last for long, as it seems like an introductory price, but I'd get this wherever I could find it, especially in our Vegas travels, which certainly do eat up a lot of energy. At least for now, it's the most time I spend in a car in a day.

(This isn't a review. Chiquita provided no samples. These are just appreciative observations.)

A New Las Vegas for Us

Las Vegas continually redefines itself. Historical casinos change (Tropicana). Historical casinos close (Sahara). New casinos open (Palazzo), and the landscape itself changes, such as with the proposed ferris wheel that is soon to be built, that will be taller than the one in London and change Vegas's skyline. You have to expect that kind of change and adapt to it if you're either a repeat visitor or a resident. But when that change first happens, it's a shock. Not so much that you hoped it wouldn't happen (And believe me, I wish it hadn't happened), but that first time, you just can't believe that it's happening.

Dad called the America's Best Value Inn on Tropicana Avenue, the one we always stay at. We've known the manager there ever since we first came to Las Vegas because our dog Tigger was allowed there. There were pet-friendly rooms, not so much pet-friendly landscape for Tigger to do his business easily (He hated walking those rocks to find a spot to piss on), but just that we could do that was a relief because there was no one in Santa Clarita, no place that was reliable enough that we could feel good about boarding Tigger there.

The manager provided us with a decent, manageable rate every time we were there, well aware that we intended to become residents soon enough, as soon as the Clark County School District loosened up enough for Dad so he could find a teaching position there. Not only that, but he was such a nice guy, and was our introduction to the good people of Las Vegas, and we've found many others since, such as the two guys I met who run that movie poster business at the Fantastic Indoor Swapmeet on Decatur Boulevard.

When we last saw him, he had gone to the doctor about growths that he had and had the physical evidence of it with bandages. Unfortunately, it's gotten worse. Dad learned that he's completely cancer-ridden, couldn't continue on in the job, and was replaced. The new manager told us that she couldn't accomodate the rate the former manager had given us.

So Vegas changes around us. And we change with it. Dad's at the dining room table right now, thumbing through a AAA travel guide that he picked up at the AAA office across from the Valencia library on the way home, figuring out not only where we should stay (possibly nearest to or in Henderson, since we've got to look for apartments there and see what Boulder City has, too), but what hotel would provide the best rate for us. I don't mind not going to Hooters Casino Hotel as often as we did because of its proximity to America's Best Value Inn, but it really sucks that that great good man has to contend with cancer. He always made the time to chat with us whenever we saw his door open, and that made all the difference to us. It helped make us even more comfortable with the area, and certainly when I had my doubts when we got out of our rented SUV on that first night, and I looked around and thought that Vegas was even more desolate than I had imagined. It took a walk through the Mirage, and dinner at the Carnegie Deli to make me less uncertain, and that manager completely eliminated the rest of my doubts just in listening to our story about where we had come from, what we had intended to do, and recommending to us areas to look at to live and some restaurants, too. I truly won't forget that or him. The cancer news doesn't sound good, and I hope he's at least comfortable enough and can do whatever he has his heart set on in this forced retirement. He deserves that.

A Man Can't Dance Like That

For the past three days, I've been reading White House Diary by Jimmy Carter.

That's all.

It's a big book at 538 pages, especially with sometimes-multiple diary entries per page. It has been a huge help, especially for two of my books, being that Carter is an interesting president in what he read while in office, and why he read those books, once for political gain, other times themed to what he was doing, such as the steamboat cruise aboard the Delta Queen, where he spent a lot of time in the pilothouse, and also read Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain.

But it's been a huge mistake to read only that for three days. I realize that now. Here I am, still futilely thinking that I can get through a majority of the presidential books I checked out before the Valencia library closes for the transition from County of Los Angeles to City of Santa Clarita control, and I'm going about this entirely wrong. Again.

When I was doing research for What If They Lived? and had an even tighter deadline than my published-again-by-30 one, not only did I check out a massive amount of books, and not only did I read them all, but that book was all I worked on. Every single day. Not much of a break for anything else beyond eating and sleeping.

I don't have quite the same mindset as before, especially owing to having lost a significant amount of weight since October of last year. But I don't want to feel that same pressure of having to read these books in order to get another book written. Then, I just did it. I had that deadline, had to do it, and I enjoyed some of it, especially the Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Paul Lynde, Brad Renfro, Aaliyah, and Heath Ledger essays (The first because of all the detail involved in his life as an intricate part of the silent film industry, Lynde because of all the clips I got to watch over and over on YouTube and I even Netflixed his Halloween special; Renfro, Aaliyah and Heath Ledger because there are no books about them and therefore my research was exclusively online and I had to put it all together like a big jigsaw puzzle, which was a lot of fun), but this wasn't really my subject. I do have favorite actors, but I've always been fascinated more by directors.

I love the history of the presidency and of the men who were our presidents. My favorite decades for presidential history are the 1930s on. I am just as comfortable reading about Truman as I am Carter. I am perhaps more fascinated by Nixon and Reagan because I've been to the Nixon library once, and the Reagan library numerous times, though I liked the Nixon library more.

But I don't want to grow tired of this. I can't feel again like I have to rush through these books in order to produce something. Every time this happens, I end up having to reorder my immediate reading list, like I will today. Besides White House Diary, I've also been reading an essay anthology called Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times, a biography called Sandra Day O'Connor: How the First Woman on the Supreme Court Became Its Most Influential Justice by Joan Biskupic (I'm also fascinated by the personalities and inner workings of the Supreme Court, past and present), and Unstrung Heroes by Franz Lidz (I saw the movie starring John Turturro, Andie Macdowell, Michael Richards and Maury Chaykin and loved it, wanted to read the book, and I ordered the DVD for my collection, which I received yesterday). Further back on my reading list, what has remained there without being read much further yet, is Ask the Pilot by Patrick Smith (owing to my interest in aviation; a series of columns in which Smith answers questions asked about aviation in all its facets, mostly commercial travel), Malled: My Unintentional Career in Retail by Caitlin Kelly, and The Company We Keep: A Husband-and-Wife True-Life Spy Story by Robert Baer and Dayna Baer, about meeting while working in the CIA.

It's not the amount of books that causes the trouble. It's always the instance being too gung-ho about my research. Reading should always be a pleasure, no matter what you're reading for whatever purpose.

There's no question that I'm not going to finish reading White House Diary today. I need a break. Tomorrow, I intend to return the rest of the books in the American Presidents series from the Times Books arm of Henry Holt and Company. That's what I think began this trouble because it's all that I've been reading up until now for my research, and even though it's useful to me to get an overview of each president, I've become tired of the format and still I tried to force myself through them. Big mistake.

Do I want to continue the Sandra Day O'Connor biography? I'm only 13 pages into 432 pages, so it's no problem if I let it go for now. I'm further into Unstrung Heroes, 39 pages of 194. Plus, the story's an inspiration to me with all that eccentricity.

The bottom of my reading list will remain. I'll get to those books. I'm never worried about that. But I need to add a new book. I need something that lets me luxuriate in words, kind of like a spa massage to relieve the tension. Bookmark Now could do that to some degree, but I need something even more vast. Maybe Best of the Oxford American: Ten Years from the Southern Magazine of Good Writing. Florida is still the South, no matter the technicalities. Driving from a point in South Florida to Naples, it takes an hour to cross the state from east to west, and you drive through Alligator Alley, where alligators can be seen at the side of the road. That's southern. Don't tell me otherwise. I am proud of that. Southern writing is genuine. There's no attempts at posturing. No assumptions on anything. What you read is what was lived, proudly, tragically, never with a broken spirit.

Or maybe the first of the Cornbread Nation anthologies, subtitled The Best of Southern Food Writing. Intense passion for the South is right here. I learned about these when I read the 2005 food issue of The Oxford American. It's all food writing. There are some themes. Volume 2 is The United States of Barbecue. Volume 3 is Foods of the Mountain South. I have all the volumes, though I intend to go in order. So the first volume might do me some good today. I need words that don't have a personal purpose.

Mr. Carter's Plains, Georgia is as interesting to me as my old stomping grounds in my beloved state, but not today. Relief needs to come. And so does a better organizational plan so this doesn't keep happening.

Let Me Introduce You to Primm

If you've flown to Las Vegas, you've never known Primm. If you've driven to Las Vegas and you weren't coming from Los Angeles, you've never seen Primm. It is the pre-show to Las Vegas, home to three casinos: Whiskey Pete's, Buffalo Bill's, and the Primm Valley Resort and Casino. They've got a roller coaster called The Desperado, but I find most fascinating the relatively high-end convenience store near the state line. I don't know the name, but when you walk in, there's that long hallway leading to the men's and women's restrooms that has a huge framed map of the United States stretching all the way. That's to your left. To your right, just before the convenience store, is a tight bank of slot machines with stools. Then, there's enough space to find what you might want to eat or drink for the drive back. Mainly snacks and sandwiches, and of course there's coffee and all kinds of sodas. I miss Vegas Chips, which I had on one drive back. Those were made in Las Vegas, but no more. On our last trip, we couldn't find them. They'd just disappeared. It reminds me of one trip to Vegas (We always drive), after we passed Primm, and we found a riverboat-shaped casino that had been closed and pretty much abandoned. The next trip, we drove past Primm and that riverboat casino wasn't there anymore. It had been torn down, dismantled, but think about it: Only in the desert can a riverboat disappear like that. And that's when I knew that Las Vegas was for me.

Yesterday, I received a book in the mail I had ordered upon learning that becoming a resident of Southern Nevada may be more possible now than in years before. It's called In the Desert of Desire: Las Vegas and the Culture of Spectacle by William L. Fox. Fox writes about art galleries in casinos, the shark reef at Mandalay Bay, as well as how Las Vegas barely funds museums and zoos. It's of course also about the spectacle of Las Vegas, but, to quote the copy on the back flap: "This compelling, disturbing discussion of entertainment and the arts in Las Vegas shows how our insatiable modern appetite for extravagance and spectacle has diminished the power of unembellished nature and the arts to teach and inspire us, and demonstrates the way our libertarian society privileges private benefit over public good."

I'll read about all that later. I found this book while wandering through the listings on Amazon for books about Las Vegas and I immediately wanted it after I read the first page of chapter 1. This is Primm exactly as Fox writes about it. I've never known the border making itself apparent like that as Fox writes about it, but I do know that once you cross the border into Nevada, the road becomes much smoother. They're maintained a lot better in Nevada:

"The border between California and Nevada makes itself apparent ten miles before you cross it. When you drive around the last curve on Interstate 15 before descending from the eponymously named Mountain Pass and into the Ivanpah Valley, several enormous structures appear at the far end of the playa, a lakebed that since the Pleistocene ended almost ten thousand years ago has been more dry than wet. Three hotel-casinos, a discount mall, and a nearby 500-megawatt, gas-fired, water-cooled power plant flank the freeway, forming a surreal gateway into the state, one that declares, "Abandon reality, all ye who enter here." The allusion to Dante's Inferno is strengthened not only by the feverish temperatures of the Mojave Desert but also by the sight of the Desperado roller-coaster on the left at Buffalo Bill's. It's actually a "hyper-coaster" that is one of the tallest and fastest in the world. Its cars drop 215 feet and hit 95 miles per hour at the bottom, which in my book is considerably more like torture than entertainment. Las Vegas is still thirty-five miles to the north, but the address out here is 31900 Las Vegas Boulevard South. Only a range of hills, another arid valley, and 319 blocks to go.

The high-rise hotels of Primm rise out of the Mojave with nothing to buffer them from the floor of the scorched alkali flat. No trees, houses, strip malls. It looks like a set for a cheap cowboy movie, the Wild West architectural touches on Whiskey Pete's and Buffalo Bill's not even trying to echo a real western town so much as a cartoon one. The layers of resemblance are not coincidental."

Basketball As It Has Never Been Played Before

I know exactly what we did on our first trip to Las Vegas, I know exactly what we did on our most recent trip to Las Vegas. But I can't always keep straight such details as when we first went to the Pinball Hall of Fame and I found my heaven in all those pinball machines, or when we went to the Fantastic Indoor Swapmeet on Decatur Boulevard, and I found not only a laminated poster of my favorite Bond film, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, but also the two guys who ran the business who were just as passionate about movies as I am. Not only would I have been content to chat with them all day, but come the time we move, I would have loved to man their area of the swapmeet. I think it would have been an honor to work for them. (I'll see if they're still there, but that's not the kind of job I want.)

I don't think this story happened at the same time as finding that poster. I get the feeling, though, that it happened on our second trip to Vegas.

I still was interested in a career in aviation back then. And Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University had a building on the grounds of Nellis Air Force Base. So before we left for Vegas, I made an appointment with one of the admissions officers there, to see what was available, to tour the classrooms. Meridith had the same desire, at the campus of Le Cordon Bleu, and we had done that the day before. She got the better deal. They had free, fresh little pastries on trays in the lobby.

We parked near the security gate to Nellis, went to the little security office, and waited for that Embry-Riddle representative to show up, so we could get back in our car and follow her to the building. On the way, I got my first look at what Air Force barracks look like. Now, I know every branch of our armed services is about uniformity. You can't have wildly different personalities in a group if you want a tight, cohesive unit for defense. But looking at that depressed gray color of that building, I wonder: Did the Air Force take housing decoration tips from the Soviets? I determined that I could never serve in the Air Force or really any other military branch. What the armed forces does is heroic, but it's just not me.

After the discussion with the admissions officer, and after the brief tour, we went to a Wal-Mart near Nellis. This is where you'll find military families. It's quite possibly the most interesting Wal-Mart I've been to, because it genuinely matches the area. It's almost like the barracks themselves. There's no muck-about business here. You get what you need and you go. The mothers that I saw with their kids were very businesslike about what they needed to get. Nowhere in the three Wal-Marts here in the Santa Clarita Valley do you get that impression. Maybe only at the Stevenson Ranch Wal-Mart because it's the most rundown and you get that fend-for-yourself-because-we-ain't-doing-shit feeling there. At least at the Nellis Wal-Mart, they keep everything well-stocked.

While walking around that Wal-Mart, Meridith and I spotted basketballs. There's a hoop at America's Best Value Inn on Tropicana Avenue, where we always stay. And we didn't have a basketball. So we got a basketball.

Now, I loved going to Walt Disney World every weekend when I was little. It fired my imagination every time, even from the stroller I was always in. I loved the parades, and especially when performers would stop by during their route to say hello, since a lot of people in the park knew us that well, including monorail drivers. As I got older, and we visited less often because we lived in South Florida, I spent the entire day of every visit in Tomorrowland, never leaving, except to check in with my parents. I went on Space Mountain, the Tomorrowland Transit Authority, and Walt Disney's Carousel of Progress in a loop. My favorite time on Space Mountain was in 2000, when the guy manning the gate to the monorail at the Ticket and Transportation Center let us through after hearing about how we visited WDW all the time when we lived here. This was during Early Entry for hotel guests, when they'd get the run of the park for about an hour before the park opened to the general public. On that morning, I rode Space Mountain three times before it began to get crowded.

But I don't think Walt Disney World would have the same impact on me now as it did back then. I still fondly remember riding the Tomorrowland Transit Authority, Cinderella's Castle in front of me on one loop around the "Tomorrowland Interplanetary Convention Center" (It's where the ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter was, and now Stitch's Great Escape is there), and loving that view because it showed me that some things can be combined agreeably, no matter how disparate they are. I don't think it would work for me today, even with the TTA's original soundtrack on my mp3 player (They replaced it with what sounds like a hyped-up, sugared-up advertisement for all the attractions in Tomorrowland, which is not at all necessary, because it takes you completely out of the area, and it shouldn't. The original soundtrack is far more imaginative).

It's said that Las Vegas is an adult Disney World. Having been there many times now, I agree. It's a hedonistic paradise, and exactly how I've always wanted to live my life. Not for gambling and drinking with reckless abandon, since I don't do either, and that's an amateur's way of experiencing Las Vegas, especially if you're still doing it on your fifth and sixth time there, but just because whatever you might be looking for there, chances are you'll find it. And most of the time, you'll find what you never expected. I've always wanted to live where people are unafraid to live, to be themselves, no matter how long they're there for. I get that impression not just on the Strip, but also in Henderson at a 7-11 we stopped at where the guy at the counter was good-natured, and in Boulder City, at the library, where they're proud to be where they are. It's not an act. It's genuine. Having lived in Southern California for seven years, I can tell when it's genuine.

The next morning, Meridith and I got out the basketball and went to the hoop, which is next to the pool area. Vegas is always at its peak at night with all of the lights, but to me, it's more fascinating in the daylight. It still maintains its appeal, though now you have to search a little more deeply for what you want. It's that kind of exploration that adds more to the nighttime experience, because you know the casinos even more intimately and especially the outside. You get to see more detail on the lion statues at the MGM Grand, the Eiffel Tower at Paris, and the opulence at the Palazzo. I'm still waiting to go to the Orleans Hotel and Casino. And I can't wait to go back to Eastside Cannery as a resident. It'll definitely feel different, locals' discounts for shows and other attractions notwithstanding.

For me, though, very few experiences can match shooting hoops at America's Best Value Inn, because Meridith and I were playing in the shadow of the MGM Grand. It's right across the street. Next to us is Hooters Casino Hotel. Next to that, if you squint, you can spot the Tropicana. Near the MGM Grand is New York-New York and you can see the facade clearly. Nowhere else can you play basketball like that. This is a truly unique spot in the entire world. Meridith and I have also played basketball there when it begins to get dark, and it's pure poetry that shows the dire need for a Las Vegas literary scene. I've found writers' groups in Las Vegas and in Henderson (I'm thinking about joining the one in Henderson after we get settled as new residents), and I hope they're writing about moments like that. Vegas doesn't only need what it already has in entertainment options and buffets and sex in many forms, but it also needs words that describe moments like that. During that one basketball game, Meridith and I saw the powerful white light at the top of the Luxor come on. This is my new Disney World. I know I can be happy here every day, and it's for moments like that which keep me going as a writer. If you can't find anything to write about in Las Vegas, then you shouldn't be a writer.

Tuesday's Drive into the Future

As it stands now, Mom and Dad are driving to Las Vegas on Tuesday for a job interview Dad has at a charter school in Henderson. This is it. This is what we have waited for. And it feels right. This is the time to begin living as we should, for complete happiness and satisfaction that each day has been well spent.

I've already made my one request known. When they stop at the gas station-cum-food court in Baker, the halfway point to Las Vegas, they have to pick up a copy of the weekend section of the Las Vegas Review-Journal for me. It's in the rack of free publications, at the bottom, next to the claw machine. I haven't seen it for so long, and I'd like to get reacquainted with it. For Mike Weatherford's entertainment columns, I always rely on the Review-Journal's website. It's not the same. I can't wait to hold a newspaper again, to know that this is my area's newspaper, and have it feel like home. I've waited so long for that feeling.

The plan is that they'll get to Vegas by Tuesday afternoon, Dad will go to the job interview, and then they'll drive back. With luck, it won't be long until we're back there again, all of us, looking for that one sizable apartment that feels like home. No home maintenance again. Let someone else handle a leaky faucet or a stove repair without it costing us anything.

Today, I found that there's a writers' group in Henderson. And of course there's the JCC (Jewish Community Center) of Southern Nevada in Henderson. So I'm set. Finally I want to live in my area, not just exist as it has been for these years in Santa Clarita. I feel like we'll get there, we'll get settled, I'll find a full-time job (I know exactly what I want to do), and life will be really good. That's all I want.

The Big Kahuna Done Differently

I was going through the listings for the Sundance Channel once more because, besides Brief Interviews with Hideous Men on Friday night, and The Big Kahuna on Saturday afternoon, the to-record list on the Tivo is awfully devoid of anything on the Sundance Channel, though I see now that it's because nothing else really interested me, though I did find King of California on Flix, so that's a good score.

The Big Kahuna is about three men who work for the same industrial lubricant company who are trying to attract a huge client that could make business very easy for them for a long time to come. Kevin Spacey and Danny DeVito play two salesmen and longtime friends, while the fresh-faced and uncertain-of-himself (as is expected in the role) Peter Facinelli plays a new guy, from the research and development side of the company.

I think the plot description has been the same for years, even when we used to subscribe to TV Guide when it was an actual TV guide. On the screen right now, with The Big Kahuna highlighted in yellow, the plot description is:

"Three traveling salesmen meet and find they are all waiting for the same potential client."

Completely untrue, yet utterly fascinating. That would work as either a separate film or a play. There is something there to be explored.