I'm not sure if it still goes on, and I don't ever want to find out, but on Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings, if there were no sports to air and no reruns worth rerunning, CBS 2 in Los Angeles would air movies you've never heard of. It would be more expensive, I'm sure, to air the higher-profile movies, so we'd get movies like Mojave Moon, starring Danny Aiello, Anne Archer, Alfred Molina, and Angelina Jolie early in her career, circa 1996. All I knew about it when it aired one idle Saturday afternoon on CBS was that I liked the opening song, "Lavender," by Watsonville Patio, and wanted it on my mp3 player. I watched nothing more than those opening titles, those tracking shots through the desert in Palmdale, as I learned just a few minutes ago.
I've played "Lavender" over and over (Try it here), but never was curious about the movie until now, when I'm in the desert in Southern Nevada, when it's 104 degrees outside right now and expected to be 114 on Friday, 116 on Saturday, and 117 on Sunday. So why would I even be interested in a movie called Mojave Moon in the midst of this heat, which keeps me inside the house and unable to enjoy my city during the day? First, because it's called Mojave Moon, because it reminds me of the evening to come, the time of day I look forward to most during the summer because I can walk my dogs a longer distance and be able to have my desert back for a few hours. I know it's the desert and it's expected, but still being relatively new to Las Vegas over nine months now, I'm still getting used to it. And I will get used to it, but the surprise will take some time to wear off. Yes, surprise, and a little disappointment, even though this is expected.
10 minutes into Mojave Moon on Amazon Instant Video (I rented it), I like it so far because it looks at streets not always known in movies set in Los Angeles. But Mojave Moon isn't only set in Los Angeles. On IMDB, the sole filming location is Palmdale, where we went many times when we existed in the Santa Clarita Valley in order to go to the only Sonic near us, a 45-minute-or-more drive, but still going out to even further isolated territory. If Los Angeles wants to call itself the desert (and it's not because of what it's built and what it has become), they would have settled in Palmdale, and Palmdale would have been Los Angeles, and there they could have called themselves the desert and meant it.
I liked Palmdale to a degree. I liked that it felt more honest than Los Angeles. There's no bullshit in the desert, at least on the surface. With people in the desert, your mileage may vary, but I've met more nice souls here in Las Vegas in nine months than I had in nine years in Southern California, genuine nice souls, and not posing for some kind of advantage. But I think I'm also interested in Mojave Moon because I'm long gone from Southern California, because I never saw Southern California at the time this movie was filmed. That's why I want Buena Park to be the end of my first novel, why I want to write extensively about Anaheim for my second novel, because I don't have access to them anymore. I know them well enough from the dozens of times I visited, but now I can really think about them, what they meant to me, what they'll mean to my characters. I know Buena Park and Anaheim go on, that they may have changed in some spots after I left, but I think the general feeling remains the same, such as Buena Park remaining a quiet, small town next to Anaheim, that cares about its history, that wants people to know, and that's why the ghosts of its history hang heavily on it. Not necessarily bad history, just what it once was. That's why I always liked Buena Park.
And being nine months gone from Southern California, I can look at Palmdale in this movie and not have that little dread. I liked going to Palmdale, of course, for Sonic, and for the Walmart across from it that was there for you to get what you needed, and it had what you needed, and it had a hardy soul to it. Yeah, I know, Walmart with a soul. But in Palmdale, even the stores have little bullshit. But I've also never known a movie before to be filmed in this particular desert, so I'm curious about that, too. Even with it being 104 degrees right now. Plus, I've always liked Danny Aiello, and, to me, Angelina Jolie looks a lot more attractive here than she is today. But mainly, what do they do in a movie set in that desert? That's what I want to know.
Even more pressing is that there was some kind of Irish movie, or near Ireland, that was released in 1996, and involved children, with some kind of math thing, that aired on CBS 2 one late Sunday morning, and I can't remember the title. I keep thinking that Colm Meaney or Aidan Quinn was in it, but no luck through IMDB. It may come to mind one day, but not today. Today is for the desert in Palmdale, for Mojave Moon.
Thursday, June 27, 2013
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Only in Words and Photos
On Friday, my sister had a job interview at M&M's World on the Strip that turned into two, which is a good sign. They liked her enough during the first interview that they had her do a second with someone else higher-up there. Or at least that's what it sounds like.
The directions given to Meridith for this interview said to park in the Showcase Mall parking garage. Obviously, not only because it's right there, attached to the building that houses M&M's World, but also because we couldn't park in the garage at New York-New York and walk across the street, or park in the garage at MGM Grand and walk through the casino to that sidewalk and then walk the length of the sidewalk. It was way too hot, and it was even hotter yesterday at 115 degrees.
It costs $3 to park in the Showcase Mall garage, and that may be the reason it's so clean. Few people park in there because the Showcase Mall isn't the only place they want to go. You only park there if you want New York-New York and MGM Grand and Monte Carlo at the same time, with the parking garage a central location facing all of those. If you want to walk even further, you can reach Aria and the Cosmopolitan. In cooler days, that would be reasonable. Not that day, or rather not for us. The tourists were out and about anyway, no matter the heat. Can't waste time when you're on vacation.
We parked on the fourth floor of the garage, the top floor I think, because M&M's World reaches the fourth floor with a full-size NASCAR car and various merchandise. It's a quieter floor than any other there. Meridith had to be on the fourth floor because that's where the interview would take place. When we got inside M&M's World, and Meridith asked an employee standing near a costumed red M&M character, she was told to wait on the left side, near the door marked "Authorized Personnel Only." Even with how compact the Showcase Mall appears to be, with a smaller Coca-Cola store and a Half Price Tickets kiosk, there's still room for offices in the back. Amazing.
I thought the big thing for me during this visit would be the free 3D movie, "I Lost My 'M' in Vegas," shown in a tiny screening room on the third floor. Not so. We parked and walked to the double doors that were an entrance to an enclosed walkway that would lead us to M&M's World. We opened the doors and I found the cleanest, the most peaceful, and the most low-key walkway I've ever seen in Las Vegas. White tile flooring, framed posters of upcoming movies at the entrance to the walkway and at the end of the walkway, courtesy of the nearby United Artists theater, and above, a wavy metal ceiling structure with small holes all throughout, and above that structure, wavy red neon lighting embedded in the ceiling. If there is a Heaven after this life, this is the walkway that I hope will be there. But more than that, I knew right away that I had to use this walkway in my first novel. And things changed because of that.
Originally, I wanted my two main characters to go to the Buena Park Downtown mall after eating at Po Folks, a Southern restaurant I grew up on in Florida, which had only one branch this far out, and it closed some time ago. But in my novel, it's still open. Now, I loved Buena Park Downtown, with its slight gloom, its gray color scheme, its mostly low ceilings because it felt like it had history, it had a semi-lived-in feeling, and it seemed to keep memories of those who walked through and who worked there. Not necessarily in soda stains, but just the feeling of the place, like if you stared hard enough at a wall near the entrance to the Walmart there, you could actually see who was there before you. Something like that.
The scene at Buena Park Downtown would have involved the duo going down to the first floor, to John's Incredible Pizza Company, where there would be a frantic search for the rare pinball machine on the massive arcade floor, a fervent belief that it's there. But after finding that walkway, and considering the information that my characters would be given along the way, across the country, in this search, wouldn't it be enough that the final piece come from the source they meet in this walkway? I'm not going to reveal why this source is there, but I like how it may play out. And because of that, because they can just go right to where they need to be after eating at Po Folks, it makes Buena Park Downtown an extraneous scene. It adds nothing to my story. But I feel ok about it. No regrets about not being able to use it. The story leads.
I was thinking about all this while watching an indie film called Littlerock on Amazon Instant Video. A brother and sister, two Japanese tourists, wind up in a Southern California desert town called Littlerock after their rental car breaks down. There is nothing to do in this town, and as Atsuko (Atsuko Okatsuka) observes, the stores are so far away. I'm trying to watch it, and it's not that it isn't good. It captures that disembodied atmosphere perfectly. But I'm not as interested in it as I originally hoped. I want to keep in mind Buena Park, Anaheim, Baker, and San Juan Capistrano. I need the first three for my writing, and the latter for my own memories. But the rest of Southern California, such as Victorville, Palmdale, and other places that mirror Littlerock? I don't want them anymore. I don't think I ever wanted them, but I needed them for nine years, to know them a little bit, for survival, to keep my head on straight during those nine long years. Now that I'm here in Las Vegas, they fade. I'm glad they do because I have so much here to fill me up, so much to explore every day. It's not that bad memories come to the surface during Littlerock, but the question of why I'm watching this when I've left it all behind. That's not my desert. It never was. Originally, I think I wanted to see Littlerock because I wanted to see how a filmmaker saw what I had known for all that time. Could they find some new revelation in it that I hadn't known? So far, no. It is what I once remember. Same as it ever was.
And yet, I have King of California in my DVD collection, and that's set in Santa Clarita, though it wasn't entirely filmed there. Why that? Why a movie that's meant to represent a valley in which I existed for nine long years? That's different. King of California is a Quixotesque story that is only partially about place. It is mainly about a frantic search for buried treasure. And it moves. It never dwells too long. Plus, it's not the actual Santa Clarita I knew, because there's no Santa Clarita Department of Mental Health. Plus it serves as one of many blueprints for my novel.
I don't read anything about Southern California anymore that's not research-related. I spent more than enough time there. But what I do read, if it's a novel to inform my own novel, or a book about, say, Anaheim or some aspect of Anaheim, I can handle that. I don't mind that. I think it's because for me, words don't take as much time as some movies do. Granted, Littlerock is only an hour and 23 minutes, but a chapter in a book about Anaheim would take far less time to read. I can get the information I need and move on and that's all I have to know about Southern California until I need something else, or something else comes up in my reading that I want to include in my work. It's the same with photos I find online, of Baker, of Buena Park. I can look at them for a minute or a few minutes if necessary and then move on. I don't need the atmosphere anymore. It's lodged in my memory for when I write about it. I don't need that mess of mountains and freeways. I don't even need the trains because our future apartment complex is located near the railroad track and I can have those trains. To watch Littlerock and be back in Southern California like that is too long. Maybe for me it's the kind of movie to watch in pieces, to fast forward, watch a few seconds, see where it leads, and go to another section. I got the gist of the movie in the first five minutes, so anything else to come would not be anything so new to me that I'd have to go back to previous scenes, scenes that I possibly hadn't watched, to know what's going on. Nine years is a long enough time that pieces of Southern California will always be with me. If not in my work, then the rare pleasant memories I had there, such as that day of research at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Margaret Herrick Library in Beverly Hills. But it doesn't mean that I want to dwell, as Littlerock would have me do. Though that's not the actual purpose of the movie, it's what I take from it from my own personal experience. And yet, when I write the Buena Park section of my first novel, and write extensively about Anaheim in a later novel, I will be dwelling. The difference is that I don't mind being in either city in my mind. I don't need what doesn't matter to me anymore. Let it remain distant as it has for these past eight months and counting. As I watch Littlerock it's a reminder of what I'm glad to have left behind. After those nine years, to the point where I was trying not to lose hope of ever getting out of there, I made it out. In that way, perhaps Littlerock is a victory lap for me. I can watch what I want of it and it doesn't affect me like it used to. I've completely detached myself from it. For that, I'm relieved. It'll always be in me, but it's not me.
The directions given to Meridith for this interview said to park in the Showcase Mall parking garage. Obviously, not only because it's right there, attached to the building that houses M&M's World, but also because we couldn't park in the garage at New York-New York and walk across the street, or park in the garage at MGM Grand and walk through the casino to that sidewalk and then walk the length of the sidewalk. It was way too hot, and it was even hotter yesterday at 115 degrees.
It costs $3 to park in the Showcase Mall garage, and that may be the reason it's so clean. Few people park in there because the Showcase Mall isn't the only place they want to go. You only park there if you want New York-New York and MGM Grand and Monte Carlo at the same time, with the parking garage a central location facing all of those. If you want to walk even further, you can reach Aria and the Cosmopolitan. In cooler days, that would be reasonable. Not that day, or rather not for us. The tourists were out and about anyway, no matter the heat. Can't waste time when you're on vacation.
We parked on the fourth floor of the garage, the top floor I think, because M&M's World reaches the fourth floor with a full-size NASCAR car and various merchandise. It's a quieter floor than any other there. Meridith had to be on the fourth floor because that's where the interview would take place. When we got inside M&M's World, and Meridith asked an employee standing near a costumed red M&M character, she was told to wait on the left side, near the door marked "Authorized Personnel Only." Even with how compact the Showcase Mall appears to be, with a smaller Coca-Cola store and a Half Price Tickets kiosk, there's still room for offices in the back. Amazing.
I thought the big thing for me during this visit would be the free 3D movie, "I Lost My 'M' in Vegas," shown in a tiny screening room on the third floor. Not so. We parked and walked to the double doors that were an entrance to an enclosed walkway that would lead us to M&M's World. We opened the doors and I found the cleanest, the most peaceful, and the most low-key walkway I've ever seen in Las Vegas. White tile flooring, framed posters of upcoming movies at the entrance to the walkway and at the end of the walkway, courtesy of the nearby United Artists theater, and above, a wavy metal ceiling structure with small holes all throughout, and above that structure, wavy red neon lighting embedded in the ceiling. If there is a Heaven after this life, this is the walkway that I hope will be there. But more than that, I knew right away that I had to use this walkway in my first novel. And things changed because of that.
Originally, I wanted my two main characters to go to the Buena Park Downtown mall after eating at Po Folks, a Southern restaurant I grew up on in Florida, which had only one branch this far out, and it closed some time ago. But in my novel, it's still open. Now, I loved Buena Park Downtown, with its slight gloom, its gray color scheme, its mostly low ceilings because it felt like it had history, it had a semi-lived-in feeling, and it seemed to keep memories of those who walked through and who worked there. Not necessarily in soda stains, but just the feeling of the place, like if you stared hard enough at a wall near the entrance to the Walmart there, you could actually see who was there before you. Something like that.
The scene at Buena Park Downtown would have involved the duo going down to the first floor, to John's Incredible Pizza Company, where there would be a frantic search for the rare pinball machine on the massive arcade floor, a fervent belief that it's there. But after finding that walkway, and considering the information that my characters would be given along the way, across the country, in this search, wouldn't it be enough that the final piece come from the source they meet in this walkway? I'm not going to reveal why this source is there, but I like how it may play out. And because of that, because they can just go right to where they need to be after eating at Po Folks, it makes Buena Park Downtown an extraneous scene. It adds nothing to my story. But I feel ok about it. No regrets about not being able to use it. The story leads.
I was thinking about all this while watching an indie film called Littlerock on Amazon Instant Video. A brother and sister, two Japanese tourists, wind up in a Southern California desert town called Littlerock after their rental car breaks down. There is nothing to do in this town, and as Atsuko (Atsuko Okatsuka) observes, the stores are so far away. I'm trying to watch it, and it's not that it isn't good. It captures that disembodied atmosphere perfectly. But I'm not as interested in it as I originally hoped. I want to keep in mind Buena Park, Anaheim, Baker, and San Juan Capistrano. I need the first three for my writing, and the latter for my own memories. But the rest of Southern California, such as Victorville, Palmdale, and other places that mirror Littlerock? I don't want them anymore. I don't think I ever wanted them, but I needed them for nine years, to know them a little bit, for survival, to keep my head on straight during those nine long years. Now that I'm here in Las Vegas, they fade. I'm glad they do because I have so much here to fill me up, so much to explore every day. It's not that bad memories come to the surface during Littlerock, but the question of why I'm watching this when I've left it all behind. That's not my desert. It never was. Originally, I think I wanted to see Littlerock because I wanted to see how a filmmaker saw what I had known for all that time. Could they find some new revelation in it that I hadn't known? So far, no. It is what I once remember. Same as it ever was.
And yet, I have King of California in my DVD collection, and that's set in Santa Clarita, though it wasn't entirely filmed there. Why that? Why a movie that's meant to represent a valley in which I existed for nine long years? That's different. King of California is a Quixotesque story that is only partially about place. It is mainly about a frantic search for buried treasure. And it moves. It never dwells too long. Plus, it's not the actual Santa Clarita I knew, because there's no Santa Clarita Department of Mental Health. Plus it serves as one of many blueprints for my novel.
I don't read anything about Southern California anymore that's not research-related. I spent more than enough time there. But what I do read, if it's a novel to inform my own novel, or a book about, say, Anaheim or some aspect of Anaheim, I can handle that. I don't mind that. I think it's because for me, words don't take as much time as some movies do. Granted, Littlerock is only an hour and 23 minutes, but a chapter in a book about Anaheim would take far less time to read. I can get the information I need and move on and that's all I have to know about Southern California until I need something else, or something else comes up in my reading that I want to include in my work. It's the same with photos I find online, of Baker, of Buena Park. I can look at them for a minute or a few minutes if necessary and then move on. I don't need the atmosphere anymore. It's lodged in my memory for when I write about it. I don't need that mess of mountains and freeways. I don't even need the trains because our future apartment complex is located near the railroad track and I can have those trains. To watch Littlerock and be back in Southern California like that is too long. Maybe for me it's the kind of movie to watch in pieces, to fast forward, watch a few seconds, see where it leads, and go to another section. I got the gist of the movie in the first five minutes, so anything else to come would not be anything so new to me that I'd have to go back to previous scenes, scenes that I possibly hadn't watched, to know what's going on. Nine years is a long enough time that pieces of Southern California will always be with me. If not in my work, then the rare pleasant memories I had there, such as that day of research at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Margaret Herrick Library in Beverly Hills. But it doesn't mean that I want to dwell, as Littlerock would have me do. Though that's not the actual purpose of the movie, it's what I take from it from my own personal experience. And yet, when I write the Buena Park section of my first novel, and write extensively about Anaheim in a later novel, I will be dwelling. The difference is that I don't mind being in either city in my mind. I don't need what doesn't matter to me anymore. Let it remain distant as it has for these past eight months and counting. As I watch Littlerock it's a reminder of what I'm glad to have left behind. After those nine years, to the point where I was trying not to lose hope of ever getting out of there, I made it out. In that way, perhaps Littlerock is a victory lap for me. I can watch what I want of it and it doesn't affect me like it used to. I've completely detached myself from it. For that, I'm relieved. It'll always be in me, but it's not me.
Saturday, June 1, 2013
Changing, Permeating, But Never Disappearing
Every time we drove back to Santa Clarita from Burbank, from IKEA, or Ventura from Ventura Harbor Village, or Buena Park from Po Folks and Buena Park Downtown and Anaheim from Downtown Disney, I was always deeply disappointed and even a little down because my reason for living that entire week, to reach that day when we could go to those places, was over. We were going back to where there was nothing to do, nothing to connect to, nothing to want to think about in relation to the area, such as its history or its weaving roads. I experienced all those and it was time to move on from them as Santa Clarita approached. Not forget them, of course, but not think about them as much because there was the next day. What the hell was I going to do with the next day?
Two months ago, Meridith won tickets from Sunny 106.5 to see Shania Twain at the Colosseum, choosing May 31st, yesterday, as the evening to see her. I had been following news of her show back in Southern California, when it was a rumor at first, and now I was going to have the chance to see it for myself. I was excited, I was looking forward to it, but I wasn't breathlessly anticipating it as I did a day trip to Burbank or Ventura or Buena Park or Anaheim. They were all day trips. It took that long to get to each. There were other things to do in Las Vegas leading up to the concert, such as my weekly library visits, and subbing as a library aide at various elementary schools, and reading, and writing, and visiting casinos, and visiting Henderson, and going to a buffet (the one at Terrible's lately), and grocery shopping, and so much else that never disappeared like those days did. They last. They become part of my own personal universe here, what makes me what I am in Las Vegas, and what I feel about all of it.
Even when there are places we haven't been to in such a long time, I always remember the first time I was there, such as with Caesars Palace when we went last night, our first time since we were tourists. When the elevator doors to the casino floor opened, we were overcome by the Cher Army waiting to get to the parking garage after leaving the Colosseum. Cher's show was over, so they were invading. This was in May 2010, I think, and I remembered Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill being a lot smaller. And wasn't the entrance to the Colosseum much bigger than that? Maybe Cher's glassed-in costumes at the entrance made it seem bigger. I think Bette Midler was there at the same time, part of the Colosseum rotation, which now features Celine Dion, of course, Shania Twain, Elton John, and Rod Stewart, with one-night-only dates from Jerry Seinfeld popping up occasionally. Those are the major players, as well as Luis Miguel every September to celebrate Mexican Independence Day, which is great for us for tourism.
This time, when the elevator doors opened to the casino floor, no Cher Army. She left in February 2011. And then when we saw the entrance to Mesa Grill, I thought that it had been smaller. I was sure of it. But things always seem bigger, grander, awe-inspiring when you're a tourist. That's not to say that Las Vegas isn't awe-inspiring for me anymore. Going to Caesars Palace last night was walking through another dreamworld. There's a lot of those here. Sights you'd only expect to find in dreams exist here. Seeing Shania Twain in concert might well have been in a dream because if Meridith hadn't won those tickets, I'm sure it would have been another two years before I would have been able to see her. We can't readily afford those tickets. It would have taken a lot of saving.
After seeing the Shania store (which rotates the merchandise depending on the act. Her merchandise was front and center and then after her final show tonight before she leaves for the summer, the store will close briefly and Celine Dion's merchandise will be placed front and center and more prominently throughout the rest of the store, with Twain's and Elton John's merchandise threaded throughout), and having dinner at the Cypress Street Marketplace food court, the nicest food court I've ever been to, Meridith and I left Mom and Dad and went inside the Colosseum, taking an escalator to the second floor, to our seats, which were still first-floor seating, but rising way up near the back, one row before the seats against the wall in the back. Row O, seats 425 and 426, and center-stage for us.
There are all kinds of dreams to be experienced in Las Vegas and this one began with strips of curtain that had a forest digitally projected on them, in which fireflies appeared and a black horse appeared and then faded out. It was such a beautiful scene with the appropriate forest sounds and flute music to match. And then the show began with a video of Shania Twain on a motorcycle, riding in the desert toward a tunnel and once she reached the tunnel, the real Shania Twain was lowered from the ceiling on a motorcycle, the motorcycle steering to match the motion onscreen and then she finally landed gently to begin the show, to huge applause. I don't remember what song she started with, but I was still floored that I was here, seeing Shania Twain live.
There was an outdoor Western set, as well as a Western bar set for a few songs, and besides watching Twain perform, I like watching all the behind-the-scenes business in action, such as the changing of the sets. I probably pay closer attention to this than most, and I enjoyed watching special effects end and begin according to the song. My favorite part of the concert was on a campfire set, with dry ice fog simulating a campfire, with a gentle fake flame in the middle, and rocks around the campfire for Twain and randomly-selected audience members. Before this, during two songs separated by another song, she walked off the stage to the bottom sections closest to the stage to meet and greet the audience while she sang.
Then for the campfire set, she chose a girl who was there with her mother for her 18th birthday, a couple from Brazil who had seen her in London in 2004 when they were dating, an enthusiastic Brazilian guy who looked like he was wearing his country's flag as a shirt and a beanie hat, and most touchingly, a girl possibly younger than the 18-year-old one, 16 or 15 it looked like, who was overwhelmed and started tearing up on stage because she had been singing Twain's songs since she was 5. Twain had just finished tearing up reminiscing about her late mother and the greatest gift she gave her, her sister Carrie-Ann, and she started all over upon meeting that girl. She had the birthday girl and her biggest fan sit next to her on stage and there were two acoustic songs sung. Twain's love for her audiences is genuine. She is so appreciative of her good fortune in being this major star performer, and despite it being her second-to-last show before she leaves for the summer (her final show is tonight and then she's back in late November), she gave it her all for the entire show.
The final third of the show began with her singing "Still the One" to her white horse on stage, and then "From This Moment On," closing the show with "Man! I Feel Like a Woman." I loved the entire show, but I was especially fascinated by the musicians, the harmonica/piano player, the electric guitarist and the other musicians, because they were clearly in their zone. They have a plum gig with this show and they know it and they love performing as much as Twain does. The harmonica player in the song on the outdoor Western set became the piano player in the Western bar set, and he was jumping around while he was playing the piano. They clearly love what they do.
I was disappointed that "You've Got a Way" wasn't in the setlist, but that was tempered by the Colosseum being the crown jewel of Las Vegas. Meridith said that going to the Colosseum to see a show should be on everyone's bucket list. But I amend that to limit it to those who live in Las Vegas and who visit Las Vegas. She's right. It was built in 2003 solely to entice Celine Dion, and it has become a mega-entertainment venue. It's rightfully celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. I've been to a few showrooms in Las Vegas, with many more to come for sure, and I don't think any can type the Colosseum for class, for beauty, for gentle history. Everyone at Caesars Palace involved with the Colosseum take such loving care of it and it shows.
Now it's 5:09, the next afternoon. Michael Bolton is performing at Eastside Cannery at 8:30 tonight, and Mom and Meridith will be there since Mom won tickets for it on Sunny 106.5 on Thursday. I'm not thinking as much about Shania: Still the One beyond what I wrote, but living here, it'll always be in mind in some way. It colors my view of Las Vegas being a continuous waking dream. It makes me wonder more about those musicians, about what they do for work when Twain goes back home to the Bahamas for the break. I'm sure they find work somewhere, but do they already have it lined up or are they waiting until after the final show tonight? And where do they store those sets at the Colosseum? Do they truck them off to a nearby air-conditioned, climate-controlled warehouse, or is there plenty of room backstage? How does that work?
This time, and in previous times, I'm not disappointed that the experience is over. I'm still here, and will always be here, so it's still here. No matter how many years down the road Twain performs until she decides to leave, it'll never leave. I like that. For once, it's not about having to go back to real life as defined like it was in Santa Clarita. It fits squarely in my memories, in my imagination, and that's important to me. I can look at the Colosseum and know I was there, and also wonder what will happen next. Elton John is coming back to the Colosseum in September and October, and I'm hoping Sunny 106.5 gives away tickets. Because it's him, and after being at the Colosseum, I'm going to bang the phone away for those, trying my damndest every single time they're announced. But hopefully not every single time. I hope I win them the first or second time.
I know that it's partly because I'm local and not having to go through mountains and freeways that the show will never leave me, that I can always reference it any way I need to in heart and mind. But it's also because I'm finally home that I can do that, that I care enough to remember, and without regret, as it was for all those years, regret at having to leave pleasure. Here, it's always mine. That's how it should be, and I finally have it.
Two months ago, Meridith won tickets from Sunny 106.5 to see Shania Twain at the Colosseum, choosing May 31st, yesterday, as the evening to see her. I had been following news of her show back in Southern California, when it was a rumor at first, and now I was going to have the chance to see it for myself. I was excited, I was looking forward to it, but I wasn't breathlessly anticipating it as I did a day trip to Burbank or Ventura or Buena Park or Anaheim. They were all day trips. It took that long to get to each. There were other things to do in Las Vegas leading up to the concert, such as my weekly library visits, and subbing as a library aide at various elementary schools, and reading, and writing, and visiting casinos, and visiting Henderson, and going to a buffet (the one at Terrible's lately), and grocery shopping, and so much else that never disappeared like those days did. They last. They become part of my own personal universe here, what makes me what I am in Las Vegas, and what I feel about all of it.
Even when there are places we haven't been to in such a long time, I always remember the first time I was there, such as with Caesars Palace when we went last night, our first time since we were tourists. When the elevator doors to the casino floor opened, we were overcome by the Cher Army waiting to get to the parking garage after leaving the Colosseum. Cher's show was over, so they were invading. This was in May 2010, I think, and I remembered Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill being a lot smaller. And wasn't the entrance to the Colosseum much bigger than that? Maybe Cher's glassed-in costumes at the entrance made it seem bigger. I think Bette Midler was there at the same time, part of the Colosseum rotation, which now features Celine Dion, of course, Shania Twain, Elton John, and Rod Stewart, with one-night-only dates from Jerry Seinfeld popping up occasionally. Those are the major players, as well as Luis Miguel every September to celebrate Mexican Independence Day, which is great for us for tourism.
This time, when the elevator doors opened to the casino floor, no Cher Army. She left in February 2011. And then when we saw the entrance to Mesa Grill, I thought that it had been smaller. I was sure of it. But things always seem bigger, grander, awe-inspiring when you're a tourist. That's not to say that Las Vegas isn't awe-inspiring for me anymore. Going to Caesars Palace last night was walking through another dreamworld. There's a lot of those here. Sights you'd only expect to find in dreams exist here. Seeing Shania Twain in concert might well have been in a dream because if Meridith hadn't won those tickets, I'm sure it would have been another two years before I would have been able to see her. We can't readily afford those tickets. It would have taken a lot of saving.
After seeing the Shania store (which rotates the merchandise depending on the act. Her merchandise was front and center and then after her final show tonight before she leaves for the summer, the store will close briefly and Celine Dion's merchandise will be placed front and center and more prominently throughout the rest of the store, with Twain's and Elton John's merchandise threaded throughout), and having dinner at the Cypress Street Marketplace food court, the nicest food court I've ever been to, Meridith and I left Mom and Dad and went inside the Colosseum, taking an escalator to the second floor, to our seats, which were still first-floor seating, but rising way up near the back, one row before the seats against the wall in the back. Row O, seats 425 and 426, and center-stage for us.
There are all kinds of dreams to be experienced in Las Vegas and this one began with strips of curtain that had a forest digitally projected on them, in which fireflies appeared and a black horse appeared and then faded out. It was such a beautiful scene with the appropriate forest sounds and flute music to match. And then the show began with a video of Shania Twain on a motorcycle, riding in the desert toward a tunnel and once she reached the tunnel, the real Shania Twain was lowered from the ceiling on a motorcycle, the motorcycle steering to match the motion onscreen and then she finally landed gently to begin the show, to huge applause. I don't remember what song she started with, but I was still floored that I was here, seeing Shania Twain live.
There was an outdoor Western set, as well as a Western bar set for a few songs, and besides watching Twain perform, I like watching all the behind-the-scenes business in action, such as the changing of the sets. I probably pay closer attention to this than most, and I enjoyed watching special effects end and begin according to the song. My favorite part of the concert was on a campfire set, with dry ice fog simulating a campfire, with a gentle fake flame in the middle, and rocks around the campfire for Twain and randomly-selected audience members. Before this, during two songs separated by another song, she walked off the stage to the bottom sections closest to the stage to meet and greet the audience while she sang.
Then for the campfire set, she chose a girl who was there with her mother for her 18th birthday, a couple from Brazil who had seen her in London in 2004 when they were dating, an enthusiastic Brazilian guy who looked like he was wearing his country's flag as a shirt and a beanie hat, and most touchingly, a girl possibly younger than the 18-year-old one, 16 or 15 it looked like, who was overwhelmed and started tearing up on stage because she had been singing Twain's songs since she was 5. Twain had just finished tearing up reminiscing about her late mother and the greatest gift she gave her, her sister Carrie-Ann, and she started all over upon meeting that girl. She had the birthday girl and her biggest fan sit next to her on stage and there were two acoustic songs sung. Twain's love for her audiences is genuine. She is so appreciative of her good fortune in being this major star performer, and despite it being her second-to-last show before she leaves for the summer (her final show is tonight and then she's back in late November), she gave it her all for the entire show.
The final third of the show began with her singing "Still the One" to her white horse on stage, and then "From This Moment On," closing the show with "Man! I Feel Like a Woman." I loved the entire show, but I was especially fascinated by the musicians, the harmonica/piano player, the electric guitarist and the other musicians, because they were clearly in their zone. They have a plum gig with this show and they know it and they love performing as much as Twain does. The harmonica player in the song on the outdoor Western set became the piano player in the Western bar set, and he was jumping around while he was playing the piano. They clearly love what they do.
I was disappointed that "You've Got a Way" wasn't in the setlist, but that was tempered by the Colosseum being the crown jewel of Las Vegas. Meridith said that going to the Colosseum to see a show should be on everyone's bucket list. But I amend that to limit it to those who live in Las Vegas and who visit Las Vegas. She's right. It was built in 2003 solely to entice Celine Dion, and it has become a mega-entertainment venue. It's rightfully celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. I've been to a few showrooms in Las Vegas, with many more to come for sure, and I don't think any can type the Colosseum for class, for beauty, for gentle history. Everyone at Caesars Palace involved with the Colosseum take such loving care of it and it shows.
Now it's 5:09, the next afternoon. Michael Bolton is performing at Eastside Cannery at 8:30 tonight, and Mom and Meridith will be there since Mom won tickets for it on Sunny 106.5 on Thursday. I'm not thinking as much about Shania: Still the One beyond what I wrote, but living here, it'll always be in mind in some way. It colors my view of Las Vegas being a continuous waking dream. It makes me wonder more about those musicians, about what they do for work when Twain goes back home to the Bahamas for the break. I'm sure they find work somewhere, but do they already have it lined up or are they waiting until after the final show tonight? And where do they store those sets at the Colosseum? Do they truck them off to a nearby air-conditioned, climate-controlled warehouse, or is there plenty of room backstage? How does that work?
This time, and in previous times, I'm not disappointed that the experience is over. I'm still here, and will always be here, so it's still here. No matter how many years down the road Twain performs until she decides to leave, it'll never leave. I like that. For once, it's not about having to go back to real life as defined like it was in Santa Clarita. It fits squarely in my memories, in my imagination, and that's important to me. I can look at the Colosseum and know I was there, and also wonder what will happen next. Elton John is coming back to the Colosseum in September and October, and I'm hoping Sunny 106.5 gives away tickets. Because it's him, and after being at the Colosseum, I'm going to bang the phone away for those, trying my damndest every single time they're announced. But hopefully not every single time. I hope I win them the first or second time.
I know that it's partly because I'm local and not having to go through mountains and freeways that the show will never leave me, that I can always reference it any way I need to in heart and mind. But it's also because I'm finally home that I can do that, that I care enough to remember, and without regret, as it was for all those years, regret at having to leave pleasure. Here, it's always mine. That's how it should be, and I finally have it.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
The Pleasure of Local History
In Florida, I learned about Ponce de Leon, and the Fountain of Youth, and St. Augustine in my history classes. But there I was in South Florida, and there was St. Augustine in Northeast Florida. I could read about it, but I couldn't readily see it. We went there sometimes during my childhood, but the last time I could remember going was when I was reaching my late teens, when my paternal grandparents were with us on that trip, and even then it was relatively brief, although I do remember seeing the fort. But if I wanted to know more about it beyond those visits, there were the books. We didn't always have reason to go back and if it was a choice between that or Walt Disney World today, I would choose Walt Disney World first and then see if there was time later to travel on up to St. Augustine.
The biggest disappointment of moving from South Florida to Southern California, before nine years' existence in Southern California became the biggest disappointment, was that I only got to see Tallahassee, my state capital, once, and that was when we were driving out of Florida. That's where the legislature meets and that's where the governor's mansion is. I don't think I saw the governor's mansion on the way out, but I saw the Capitol. And that's all I saw of my seat of state government. In years to come, I want to go back to visit, to see how my old haunts have changed, and I'd like to see Tallahassee again, to spend more time, to have a closer look at what remained far away as we drove by.
It's because of that missed opportunity that I hold more dearly to me the pleasure of having history nearby in Las Vegas, some in Henderson, and in Boulder City. Mostly Boulder City, since it's my favorite place in Southern Nevada. I have here a book called Hoover Dam & Boulder City by Marion V. Allen, whose family lived in Boulder City, and who also worked on the construction of Hoover Dam (Boulder Dam back then). I always love receiving books from the Boulder City library because it's my favorite in the entire Las Vegas-Clark County Library District, although it operates differently in many ways from the rest of the libraries in that cluster, with a separate website for one, and you're given two extra days with any books you receive from that branch because of the distance. Boulder City is close enough to Las Vegas, closer to Henderson, but when you drive there, it feels like a different world, higher up in the mountains. Unlike the trapped feeling I always got in Santa Clarita, there's so much more to see here, so much more to wonder about.
Besides reading Hoover Dam & Boulder City out of my fervent desire to know more about the history of all that's around me, I'm looking for more information about Boulder City manager Sims Ely, who ran the town single-handedly during the construction of Hoover Dam. He was hired by the government to do so, to be sure that their investment did not go to waste, and I think there's more history of him to be found, more stories that should be told. To some, he was a despot, but that may be only because he didn't allow gambling or alcohol inside Boulder City. He strikes me as having been fair-minded, but there's not as much to be found about him as there should be. I hope to rectify that in time.
But more than any of that, I love reading about living conditions in Boulder City and Hoover Dam construction and know that I have been to both. I read these details and I know exactly what's being referenced, where it is, and what it looks like today. I'm not good yet with directions in Boulder City, which streets intersect and the easiest way to get to the Boulder City library, but I'll get there. I have lots of time for that. To be able to go to those scenes of history, to be there and remember what I have read and picture it right there is new to me. As mentioned, I didn't have the chance all that often in Florida, and there was very little history of Southern California that I cared to know, outside of Buena Park and Anaheim, and even then, I didn't get as deep into Buena Park, where other history might have been. So this is pretty much all new to me, always fascinating, and I don't think it will ever waver. Nor will the sheer novelty of the California-Nevada border being merely 35 minutes away, albeit with long stretches of road empty on both sides. Both my parents came from New York and therefore it was nothing to them to go into New Jersey or Connecticut and back again. The biggest thing for me in Florida in terms of travel like that was that it took only an hour to get from the east side of the state to the west side, from Pembroke Pines, where we lived many years before we moved, to Naples. Only an hour! And yet, there were no states to cross until you get to Northern Florida, and then out. The only time I had ever crossed borders was from the air, when we flew on Delta from Ft. Lauderdale to Newark in 1994, and all I noticed were mountains we flew over. I didn't even think of borders.
Now, when we're in Primm, especially at the lotto store to the left of the Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas, I can look right out at the roads and see the border and the signs right there, one welcoming drivers to California on the right, and the other welcoming drivers to Nevada on the left. That I can see that, and I can see where history happened wherever I want, and see what it is today and if aspects of that history have been preserved (beyond Hoover Dam, of course, and the Boulder City/Hoover Dam Museum all the way in the back on the second floor of the Boulder Dam Hotel), at times means more to me than seeing the Strip just as often. I love knowing that others have been here before me and I always want to know what brought them there and how they reacted when they first saw it, and what they wanted to do when they got here, what they were looking for. Just another way of knowing that I really am home.
The biggest disappointment of moving from South Florida to Southern California, before nine years' existence in Southern California became the biggest disappointment, was that I only got to see Tallahassee, my state capital, once, and that was when we were driving out of Florida. That's where the legislature meets and that's where the governor's mansion is. I don't think I saw the governor's mansion on the way out, but I saw the Capitol. And that's all I saw of my seat of state government. In years to come, I want to go back to visit, to see how my old haunts have changed, and I'd like to see Tallahassee again, to spend more time, to have a closer look at what remained far away as we drove by.
It's because of that missed opportunity that I hold more dearly to me the pleasure of having history nearby in Las Vegas, some in Henderson, and in Boulder City. Mostly Boulder City, since it's my favorite place in Southern Nevada. I have here a book called Hoover Dam & Boulder City by Marion V. Allen, whose family lived in Boulder City, and who also worked on the construction of Hoover Dam (Boulder Dam back then). I always love receiving books from the Boulder City library because it's my favorite in the entire Las Vegas-Clark County Library District, although it operates differently in many ways from the rest of the libraries in that cluster, with a separate website for one, and you're given two extra days with any books you receive from that branch because of the distance. Boulder City is close enough to Las Vegas, closer to Henderson, but when you drive there, it feels like a different world, higher up in the mountains. Unlike the trapped feeling I always got in Santa Clarita, there's so much more to see here, so much more to wonder about.
Besides reading Hoover Dam & Boulder City out of my fervent desire to know more about the history of all that's around me, I'm looking for more information about Boulder City manager Sims Ely, who ran the town single-handedly during the construction of Hoover Dam. He was hired by the government to do so, to be sure that their investment did not go to waste, and I think there's more history of him to be found, more stories that should be told. To some, he was a despot, but that may be only because he didn't allow gambling or alcohol inside Boulder City. He strikes me as having been fair-minded, but there's not as much to be found about him as there should be. I hope to rectify that in time.
But more than any of that, I love reading about living conditions in Boulder City and Hoover Dam construction and know that I have been to both. I read these details and I know exactly what's being referenced, where it is, and what it looks like today. I'm not good yet with directions in Boulder City, which streets intersect and the easiest way to get to the Boulder City library, but I'll get there. I have lots of time for that. To be able to go to those scenes of history, to be there and remember what I have read and picture it right there is new to me. As mentioned, I didn't have the chance all that often in Florida, and there was very little history of Southern California that I cared to know, outside of Buena Park and Anaheim, and even then, I didn't get as deep into Buena Park, where other history might have been. So this is pretty much all new to me, always fascinating, and I don't think it will ever waver. Nor will the sheer novelty of the California-Nevada border being merely 35 minutes away, albeit with long stretches of road empty on both sides. Both my parents came from New York and therefore it was nothing to them to go into New Jersey or Connecticut and back again. The biggest thing for me in Florida in terms of travel like that was that it took only an hour to get from the east side of the state to the west side, from Pembroke Pines, where we lived many years before we moved, to Naples. Only an hour! And yet, there were no states to cross until you get to Northern Florida, and then out. The only time I had ever crossed borders was from the air, when we flew on Delta from Ft. Lauderdale to Newark in 1994, and all I noticed were mountains we flew over. I didn't even think of borders.
Now, when we're in Primm, especially at the lotto store to the left of the Fashion Outlets of Las Vegas, I can look right out at the roads and see the border and the signs right there, one welcoming drivers to California on the right, and the other welcoming drivers to Nevada on the left. That I can see that, and I can see where history happened wherever I want, and see what it is today and if aspects of that history have been preserved (beyond Hoover Dam, of course, and the Boulder City/Hoover Dam Museum all the way in the back on the second floor of the Boulder Dam Hotel), at times means more to me than seeing the Strip just as often. I love knowing that others have been here before me and I always want to know what brought them there and how they reacted when they first saw it, and what they wanted to do when they got here, what they were looking for. Just another way of knowing that I really am home.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Milk at a Buffet
No matter if it's the Firelight Buffet at Sam's Town, Feast Buffet at Palace Station (Only that one time. It was awful enough to never want to go again), the International Buffet at Terrible's, or any other buffet I haven't been to yet in Las Vegas or Henderson, my drink order is the same: Milk. Always milk.
(There have been only two exceptions. Milk didn't seem appropriate at the pricey, utterly luxurious Wicked Spoon buffet at the Cosmopolitan, and I wanted to see how their iced tea was. Iced tea can tell a lot about a restaurant or a buffet, and they did it right at Wicked Spoon. Conversely, the iced tea at the Wild West Buffet at Arizona Charlie's on Boulder Highway tastes like it was brewed in a urinal, and the buffet was just as bad, only the pork stuffing coming through unscathed).
I love milk, especially Shamrock Farms' 2% Reduced Fat, surprisingly over anything my local Anderson Dairy offers, all of which tastes like water, except for their chocolate milk. Even their own 2% Reduced Fat milk is nothing more than white water. But I don't have milk all that often. For my cereal, I use Silk Soymilk. It holds longer than milk, which is convenient since I usually only have it once a day.
But at a buffet, it has to be milk for me. It's my tribute to Archie Goodwin, able legman and housemate to the sizable seventh-of-a-ton person that is Nero Wolfe in Rex Stout's series of novels. Goodwin loves milk. At any opportunity, even while on a case, he has it. It's one of his defining characteristics, besides his occasional frustration with what he sees as Wolfe's obstinacy, but is really Wolfe pursuing an avenue of thought that Goodwin hadn't considered yet, which may well be the one that keeps them in the black, and Wolfe in orchids and gourmet food, and certainly Goodwin in milk.
Since Wolfe never leaves their New York City brownstone, and never willingly when he's forced to, it's up to Goodwin to pursue what's on Wolfe's mind in a case, to interview witnesses, to catch the suspects that Wolfe deems are the suspects they want. And then when it almost seems hopeless, Wolfe has the solution.
I like this duo. I like their interplay, I like that when Archie is frustrated with Wolfe, there's still respect there. And I so love Wolfe's well-thought out reasoning that shows why he's a genius at solving cases. A buffet is a bounty of food, just like Wolfe solving the latest case produces a bounty of cash for the expensive running of his household. Therefore, milk at a buffet seems appropriate for me, not least because it brings Archie Goodwin there with me, and reminds me of that brownstone and the many happy times I've spent there so far and the times still to come.
(There have been only two exceptions. Milk didn't seem appropriate at the pricey, utterly luxurious Wicked Spoon buffet at the Cosmopolitan, and I wanted to see how their iced tea was. Iced tea can tell a lot about a restaurant or a buffet, and they did it right at Wicked Spoon. Conversely, the iced tea at the Wild West Buffet at Arizona Charlie's on Boulder Highway tastes like it was brewed in a urinal, and the buffet was just as bad, only the pork stuffing coming through unscathed).
I love milk, especially Shamrock Farms' 2% Reduced Fat, surprisingly over anything my local Anderson Dairy offers, all of which tastes like water, except for their chocolate milk. Even their own 2% Reduced Fat milk is nothing more than white water. But I don't have milk all that often. For my cereal, I use Silk Soymilk. It holds longer than milk, which is convenient since I usually only have it once a day.
But at a buffet, it has to be milk for me. It's my tribute to Archie Goodwin, able legman and housemate to the sizable seventh-of-a-ton person that is Nero Wolfe in Rex Stout's series of novels. Goodwin loves milk. At any opportunity, even while on a case, he has it. It's one of his defining characteristics, besides his occasional frustration with what he sees as Wolfe's obstinacy, but is really Wolfe pursuing an avenue of thought that Goodwin hadn't considered yet, which may well be the one that keeps them in the black, and Wolfe in orchids and gourmet food, and certainly Goodwin in milk.
Since Wolfe never leaves their New York City brownstone, and never willingly when he's forced to, it's up to Goodwin to pursue what's on Wolfe's mind in a case, to interview witnesses, to catch the suspects that Wolfe deems are the suspects they want. And then when it almost seems hopeless, Wolfe has the solution.
I like this duo. I like their interplay, I like that when Archie is frustrated with Wolfe, there's still respect there. And I so love Wolfe's well-thought out reasoning that shows why he's a genius at solving cases. A buffet is a bounty of food, just like Wolfe solving the latest case produces a bounty of cash for the expensive running of his household. Therefore, milk at a buffet seems appropriate for me, not least because it brings Archie Goodwin there with me, and reminds me of that brownstone and the many happy times I've spent there so far and the times still to come.
Saturday, May 4, 2013
The Word of Law Filtered Through the Great-Grandson
In the past two days, I have finished Gideon's Trumpet by Anthony Lewis, about the Supreme Court case in 1963 that led to legal representation for those who can't afford an attorney. I've been inspired by John Houseman's wonderfully modest performance as Earl Warren in the TV movie adaptation, enough to want to read about Warren's life, hoping he was really that way (In the one scene that inspired me, Warren walks into the room where his clerks are and calls out, "Ken?" Arthur, one of his other clerks, rises and says, "Mr. Chief Justice," and so does another clerk, besides Ken too, and Warren says, "Don't stand up, don't stand up."). And I've just finished Out of Order: Stories from the History of the Supreme Court by Sandra Day O'Connor. I am not a lawyer, nor do I have any desire to become one.
And yet, I am interested in the Supreme Court, in the federal courts, and in some of the lower courts, including my Nevada Supreme Court and my former Florida Supreme Court, as well as other courts extant in both states. A couple years ago in Southern California, when my father went to court to get the spelling of his name legally changed to ward off problems brought on by a criminal with the same name as him, including the no-fly list and a few financial issues, there were two cases ahead of him in the courtroom we were in, and I was fascinated by the procedures, so absorbed in them.
This is all due to my late maternal great-grandfather, Zeide as I knew him, who was a lawyer, as I learned from my mom when I grew up. She also told me that when I was a baby, he used to have me on his lap while he watched his beloved boxing matches on TV. This may be what led to me writing recaps of fantasy boxing matches for a website I've long forgotten, in the early days of the Internet, or my early days of it anyway. I'm not sure if his love of boxing inspired me to take that on, or if it was deep in the back of my mind and clanged when I found that opportunity, but I think it might be in my genes because I don't remember thinking about it at all when I found it. I haven't been interested in boxing since, though. I think it only cropped up that one time to gauge my interest and then disappeared.
According to Mom, who I believe because it sounded like Zeide had a caring nature and I strive to emulate that on top of my own, he was a devoted, honest lawyer who wanted what his clients wanted and worked his hardest to seek that particular outcome for them, whatever it might have been. He also had an extensive law library in the house where my mom grew up (she was raised by him and her grandmother, my great-grandmother of course, who I also unfortunately don't remember), and in fact, a year and a half ago, I ordered United States Reports Vol. 515 from the Government Printing Office, which had a low price of, well, I want to say $7.50, but it may have been slightly higher. But being on sale at that price, for 1,323 pages, I wanted to see what one of these volumes looked like, and to read it too. The full title is Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court at October Term, 1994. This was back when William H. Rehnquist was Chief Justice and John Paul Stevens and David H. Souter, one of my favorite justices, were on the Court. When Mom saw it, she said, "I saw those in Zeide's library!"
My love of presidential history naturally includes forays into Congress and the Supreme Court, because all the branches of government interact. So of course I'd read about those battles and those rarest of rare Kumbaya moments, but being most passionate about the presidency, why would I explore the Supreme Court beyond what I read about it within the presidency?
It had to be in my genes once again. Otherwise, why would I go there when there's the White House, Air Force One, the Oval Office, the White House movie theater, foreign policy decisions, domestic policy, and so much else to explore that may well take the rest of my life?
It wasn't only Zeide's influence, most likely from his genes reaching through my mom to me. Here's the presidency, big and at times boisterous, facing the world head-on. Here's Congress, mostly boisterous. And then here's the Supreme Court, which, while it decides cases of potentially historical stature, seems so quiet. The justices do their work quietly. There are no cameras allowed during arguments in the courtroom. There are only transcripts and audio after the cases are argued, and then there are the written opinions released after they, or portions of them, have been read from the bench. In short, it's the perfect place for me.
The Supreme Court reminds me of my beloved libraries. In books at least, I can explore any aspect of them I want to, and I can have a fine, quiet, peaceful time while doing so. I visit SCOTUSblog every day to see what's going on at the Court and to find links to commentaries and concise, open explanation about that activity, as well as be surprised by some of the books coming out about the Court that I hadn't heard of before. That's how I found out about The Roberts Court: The Struggle for the Constitution by Marcia Coyle, which I of course ordered. I want to read it and I don't want to wait for my local library to get it in, not least because I'm not sure how often I'm going to be able to use the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District after we move, at least before I get a car, being that the few libraries in Henderson are all run by Henderson Libraries, totally separate from the LVCCLD. That doesn't mean you can't use both library cards. Wherever you live, you can get a Henderson library card if you want, but you can only obviously use it at the Henderson libraries. And I don't know how many holds I can expect for The Roberts Court. The listing in the LVCCLD catalog shows that there are four copies ordered for the entire district, but no holds so far. Even so, even after the book is released, it still takes time for the book to get to the district and then be processed and fitted with a barcode and then to be sent from the central location where books are processed, wherever that is, to be sent to those libraries, or to be sent from there to fulfill any requests at other libraries, which may well have been mine, but you see why I don't want to wait. It's about the Supreme Court. I don't want to wait. Some books I just have to have right away.
I am flummoxed by many of the legal theories posed in the books I read, and in the technical details of many of the cases presented to the Supreme Court, but that doesn't stop me. Nor does it stop my curiosity about the federal courts and the lower courts. Plus, I'm also interested in the writing quality of the Supreme Court justices, including the justices on the Nevada Supreme Court and the Florida Supreme Court. I've read a few of those opinions. Good so far, but some of them get tangled up in their legal vines. (I hate saying it like that, but it's true in some cases.) But the ruling stands, and that's what matters most in these courts.
I don't expect to be a legal expert, but remembering my experience waiting in that courtoom for my dad's name change, and my grandfather apparently doing much good in the law, I like reading about all of this. It's not only those, though. I love the silence to think while I read, to learn more about these laws, undoubtedly with less pressure than law school students go through, which is why learning it this way is for me and why I don't want to attend college again. I don't like classrooms and scheduled times to learn. Give me my books and I'll learn it. I'm happiest learning on my own, just like the Supreme Court justices do that sometimes-momentous work on their own. No influences, supposedly. No outside noise, well, not that they can hear in chambers. No interruptions. It's another library for me. I can spend years in here, and I will. I don't know if my grandfather actually read all those books in his law library, but I've a feeling he did. I'm sure the curiosity he had toward the law is the same curiosity I have. That's the only way to explain it. I'm not doing it for him, but I'm proud to follow him in that respect.
And yet, I am interested in the Supreme Court, in the federal courts, and in some of the lower courts, including my Nevada Supreme Court and my former Florida Supreme Court, as well as other courts extant in both states. A couple years ago in Southern California, when my father went to court to get the spelling of his name legally changed to ward off problems brought on by a criminal with the same name as him, including the no-fly list and a few financial issues, there were two cases ahead of him in the courtroom we were in, and I was fascinated by the procedures, so absorbed in them.
This is all due to my late maternal great-grandfather, Zeide as I knew him, who was a lawyer, as I learned from my mom when I grew up. She also told me that when I was a baby, he used to have me on his lap while he watched his beloved boxing matches on TV. This may be what led to me writing recaps of fantasy boxing matches for a website I've long forgotten, in the early days of the Internet, or my early days of it anyway. I'm not sure if his love of boxing inspired me to take that on, or if it was deep in the back of my mind and clanged when I found that opportunity, but I think it might be in my genes because I don't remember thinking about it at all when I found it. I haven't been interested in boxing since, though. I think it only cropped up that one time to gauge my interest and then disappeared.
According to Mom, who I believe because it sounded like Zeide had a caring nature and I strive to emulate that on top of my own, he was a devoted, honest lawyer who wanted what his clients wanted and worked his hardest to seek that particular outcome for them, whatever it might have been. He also had an extensive law library in the house where my mom grew up (she was raised by him and her grandmother, my great-grandmother of course, who I also unfortunately don't remember), and in fact, a year and a half ago, I ordered United States Reports Vol. 515 from the Government Printing Office, which had a low price of, well, I want to say $7.50, but it may have been slightly higher. But being on sale at that price, for 1,323 pages, I wanted to see what one of these volumes looked like, and to read it too. The full title is Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court at October Term, 1994. This was back when William H. Rehnquist was Chief Justice and John Paul Stevens and David H. Souter, one of my favorite justices, were on the Court. When Mom saw it, she said, "I saw those in Zeide's library!"
My love of presidential history naturally includes forays into Congress and the Supreme Court, because all the branches of government interact. So of course I'd read about those battles and those rarest of rare Kumbaya moments, but being most passionate about the presidency, why would I explore the Supreme Court beyond what I read about it within the presidency?
It had to be in my genes once again. Otherwise, why would I go there when there's the White House, Air Force One, the Oval Office, the White House movie theater, foreign policy decisions, domestic policy, and so much else to explore that may well take the rest of my life?
It wasn't only Zeide's influence, most likely from his genes reaching through my mom to me. Here's the presidency, big and at times boisterous, facing the world head-on. Here's Congress, mostly boisterous. And then here's the Supreme Court, which, while it decides cases of potentially historical stature, seems so quiet. The justices do their work quietly. There are no cameras allowed during arguments in the courtroom. There are only transcripts and audio after the cases are argued, and then there are the written opinions released after they, or portions of them, have been read from the bench. In short, it's the perfect place for me.
The Supreme Court reminds me of my beloved libraries. In books at least, I can explore any aspect of them I want to, and I can have a fine, quiet, peaceful time while doing so. I visit SCOTUSblog every day to see what's going on at the Court and to find links to commentaries and concise, open explanation about that activity, as well as be surprised by some of the books coming out about the Court that I hadn't heard of before. That's how I found out about The Roberts Court: The Struggle for the Constitution by Marcia Coyle, which I of course ordered. I want to read it and I don't want to wait for my local library to get it in, not least because I'm not sure how often I'm going to be able to use the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District after we move, at least before I get a car, being that the few libraries in Henderson are all run by Henderson Libraries, totally separate from the LVCCLD. That doesn't mean you can't use both library cards. Wherever you live, you can get a Henderson library card if you want, but you can only obviously use it at the Henderson libraries. And I don't know how many holds I can expect for The Roberts Court. The listing in the LVCCLD catalog shows that there are four copies ordered for the entire district, but no holds so far. Even so, even after the book is released, it still takes time for the book to get to the district and then be processed and fitted with a barcode and then to be sent from the central location where books are processed, wherever that is, to be sent to those libraries, or to be sent from there to fulfill any requests at other libraries, which may well have been mine, but you see why I don't want to wait. It's about the Supreme Court. I don't want to wait. Some books I just have to have right away.
I am flummoxed by many of the legal theories posed in the books I read, and in the technical details of many of the cases presented to the Supreme Court, but that doesn't stop me. Nor does it stop my curiosity about the federal courts and the lower courts. Plus, I'm also interested in the writing quality of the Supreme Court justices, including the justices on the Nevada Supreme Court and the Florida Supreme Court. I've read a few of those opinions. Good so far, but some of them get tangled up in their legal vines. (I hate saying it like that, but it's true in some cases.) But the ruling stands, and that's what matters most in these courts.
I don't expect to be a legal expert, but remembering my experience waiting in that courtoom for my dad's name change, and my grandfather apparently doing much good in the law, I like reading about all of this. It's not only those, though. I love the silence to think while I read, to learn more about these laws, undoubtedly with less pressure than law school students go through, which is why learning it this way is for me and why I don't want to attend college again. I don't like classrooms and scheduled times to learn. Give me my books and I'll learn it. I'm happiest learning on my own, just like the Supreme Court justices do that sometimes-momentous work on their own. No influences, supposedly. No outside noise, well, not that they can hear in chambers. No interruptions. It's another library for me. I can spend years in here, and I will. I don't know if my grandfather actually read all those books in his law library, but I've a feeling he did. I'm sure the curiosity he had toward the law is the same curiosity I have. That's the only way to explain it. I'm not doing it for him, but I'm proud to follow him in that respect.
Monday, April 22, 2013
Save 80 Bucks. Audition for Wheel of Fortune.
The renamed Venetian Theatre was where Phantom - The Las Vegas Spectacular performed for six years. The centerpiece chandelier, which fell during every performance, is now permanently locked into the ceiling, its computer programming long since disconnected. It's not the first thing I noticed in the somber, gothic-themed, weighted-with-ghosts theater at 11:40 last Saturday morning, but the reminder was there when I looked up at it, along with the knowledge that preeminent Broadway director Hal Prince stood in this theater many times.
The theater had been remodeled since the show closed, with more seats extending to the stage, which I don't think could have been done before. The music of the night needed more room.
I wondered where the Phantom was now, what he was doing now. After the show closed, Anthony Crivello, our Phantom, went back to Broadway to audition, and I think he landed in one show. Maybe he's still in that show or maybe that show closed too. Nevertheless, he was a great supporter of Las Vegas like former Playboy Playmate Holly Madison, even gamely appearing on Wheel of Fortune during those Phantom years, whenever it was in Las Vegas for a few weeks.
Tim McGraw and Faith Hill's Soul2Soul is there now for a little while longer. Then they'll leave and be replaced with Priscilla Queen of the Desert. I don't know if the balcony seating on both sides of the theater is still used (I couldn't see the seats up there, if there were any), but with those offerings, I don't think they need to. There had been some buzz about Soul2Soul before it started, naturally. But it doesn't sound like it was a major hit. McGraw and Hill don't live here, instead flying in when it's time to perform on weekends, and that's understandable because they have other business in their careers to attend to.
I think if the box office take had been monstrous, Venetian officials would have tried to entice them with everything they could have ever wanted to stay longer. And guaranteed, Vegas Deluxe (www.vegasdeluxe.com), led by Robin Leach, would have had all the details of those negotiations. But there's nothing. As it is, the only big thing besides the impending remodel of the outside of New York-New York to build a park modeled on Madison Square Park, with shops and restaurants and a Hershey store, connecting it and the Monte Carlo and to an eventual 20,000-seat sports stadium, is that Olivia Newton-John will begin her mini-residency at the Flamingo possibly at the start of summer, performing when Donny & Marie aren't.
It's said that Tim McGraw wants to go back out on tour, and that's reasonable, but I don't think this show is going to come back. There's no word on what will follow the limited run of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, though that box office take will likely determine if they extend it, but I think they need something fresh, what with the Strip beginning to change in various places, such as the old Sahara becoming SLS Las Vegas next year, and an Asian-themed resort called Resorts World Las Vegas under construction for a 2016 opening.
But at that moment, at 11:40 in the morning, I'm sitting in a mostly empty row, across from an exit, next to Meridith, Dad and Mom. We're part of the audience for auditions for Wheel of Fortune. We filled out the small yellow applications outside the theater, while waiting in line, and dropped them in the tall box outside the theater. As we learn from the Jim Carrey-influenced, pop culture-loving host, whose name I've long forgotten, the applications are placed in a wire mesh drum and spun around and around, with applications chosen at random. Those names called go on stage, first backstage to sign in and have their photo taken. Then they stand on one of the five X's placed diagonally. The host interviews them, asking about their jobs, their hobbies, their passions, and it's there that they must be at their most enthusiastic, their most charismatic because that's what they're looking for in future contestants. Those contestants on stage would find out in two months either by a letter in the mail or by e-mail that they've been invited to the final auditions in Las Vegas. If they make it through those, they're on the show. Factoring in 6 weeks of shows being taped in July and August, which is five shows in a week (taped in one day, of course, which means the production will be here for six days), that's 30 shows. Three contestants per show is 90 contestants total. The odds are long, but we are in Las Vegas. We still hope.
Then the host spins the wheel on stage to determine what prize all the contestants will get (t-shirt, hat, mini-pack with a black shoulder strap and a keychain and "blinky pin," as the host called it, inside; or a "Surprise" that includes all those prizes and either a duffel bag or a smaller cooler bag), and then the contestants play the Speed-Up Round, which is the round when time's running out on the show and Pat Sajak gives the wheel a final spin, led by Morgan Matthews, who fills the Vanna White role for the Wheelmobile events.
The first show began and the host introduced himself and explained all this, and then introduced Morgan Matthews, who spun the drum and took out the first five applications, handing each to the host as she went along. I was surprised when Dad was called to the stage, and then I was called right after him, causing the host to comment, "A double shot of Aronskys!"
Originally, I didn't want to audition. When Mom heard about the Wheelmobile coming to the Venetian, Meridith immediately wanted to, and then Dad did too. I didn't, because while I'm not a stiff personality, I'm not that charismatic or demonstrative. I can get lively in conversation, but usually with one other person or a small group of people. It was Dad and Meridith's thing, not mine.
But then, I went to see Jeff Bridges, one of my heroes, in concert on Friday night at the Chrome Showroom at Santa Fe Station. Front row seat. Well worth the price ($88.50 via Ticketmaster, immediately when tickets went on sale), and my seat was right where Jeff Bridges stood while he played his guitars and sang, and directly in front of the keyboard on which he performed a few songs, including two from The Big Lebowski. When he played that keyboard and sang, he loomed over me at that angle and I watched him the entire time, his eyes closed throughout most of the songs he sang at that keyboard. I was in awe of the clear passion he had for his music, and on the way home, thinking about all that Jeff Bridges does in taking photos on the sets of his movies, drawing, writing his first book with Bernie Glassman, his Zen master, working to eliminate childhood hunger, attending Zen conventions, making movies of course, and now music, I thought to myself that I wanted to be a renaissance man at 63 years old like he is. But then I thought, "Why not start now?" I decided in the car that I would sign up for the chance to audition for Wheel of Fortune, but not for the purpose of becoming a renaissance man like Jeff Bridges. Mom has been watching Wheel of Fortune since Chuck Woolery hosted from 1975 to 1981. I wanted to increase our chances of getting tickets for at least one of the tapings, besides fighting like hell to get them when they become available in June, so why not increase them three-fold?
When I dashed down the steps to the stage after my name was called, following Dad as he did the same, I felt like I wasn't in my body. Was this real? Was this actually happening? I thought Meridith would be called first. She wanted it the most. But there I was, reaching the stage after figuring out how to get there, since there was a curtain in front of me that I thought led backstage (I didn't go behind it, though), and then three stairs immediately leading to the stage. I took the latter and was led backstage to a long table to sign in and then one of the production assistants, wearing a shirt that said "Spin This.", took a photo of me. Before that, I joked, "This is better than the DMV!"
I took my place on stage, the last "X", closest to the audience. I waited as the first three contestants were interviewed by the host, and then Dad, and I was a little nervous. But once called upon by the host, I went up there, told him and the audience that I'm a substitute elementary school library assistant in the Clark County School District, hoping for a full-time position. He asked me what I like to do, and I said, "Reading, writing, movies, pinball, presidential history and....more movies." (I think I got it all, because that comprises my life.) He zeroed in on presidential history, asking me who my favorite president is. "43 presidents and you want to know right now who my favorite president is?" I joked to him. In hindsight, I know there are 44, but I blanked by one.
I quickly thought about it and said "William Howard Taft," mainly because I'm reading about him right now and he does fascinate me. The host asked why and I said, "Because he didn't want to be president. He wanted to be Chief Justice of the United States and later on, he got his dream when Warren G. Harding nominated him and..." I'm not the lecturing type, but maybe I was still a little nervous because the host sensed I was going on too long and amiably moved me along with, "He really knows his presidents." I didn't mind that he moved me along since he had a show to run. I wished I could have compressed Taft's history fast enough, including the fact that he ran for president because his wife, Helen "Nellie" Taft, wanted to be First Lady, and he was devoted to her. I knew I couldn't include the fact that Taft was responsible for the Supreme Court building as we know it today, wanting a separate, grand building for this separate branch of the government, but he died before it was completed. That would have been impossible, but I wanted to get to Harding nominating Taft to be Chief Justice. Nervousness overpowers all, though, even when you don't actually feel nervous while on stage.
The puzzle began. The category was "Event." I think I guessed "L" or "M," but neither were in the puzzle. I knew what it was about a minute later, but the host was back to the beginning of the row and the fourth person before me in the row solved it: "Toga Party." As the host put it, just because you're on stage does not guarantee you a final audition, and just because you solved the puzzle does not guarantee you a final audition. They're looking for the whole package, with charisma, energy, and puzzle-solving ability all together, which flummoxed Mom after we had left the Venetian later in the day because all the time that she's watched the show, most of those people seem very subdued, so she doesn't know exactly what they're looking for if they seem all the same.
After leaving the stage, I went back up to our row, and we watched the rest of the first show. By the end, Meridith still hadn't been called up, so we went back to the elevator, downstairs (Mom uses a cane, so we don't use stairs), and got back in line for the second show where Meridith filled out a blue application and put it in the tall box outside the theater. We went back to the elevator, back to the second (or third?) floor, back to our row. Second show, no luck.
We got back in line for the third and final show of the day and Meridith filled out another application, a different color. And no luck again. After the final names for the second show were called, we got up and left the theater to get back in line before everyone else not called did the same thing. And after the final names were called for the third show, we left. What reason was there to sit for the rest of that show? Mom gave Meridith the option of going back on Sunday for those shows, for the hope of being called, but Meridith said she has three chances with those three applications, so that was enough for her. The host also said that those who aren't called on the stage still have a shot. During each show, he said he's going to take the remaining applications with him back to Los Angeles, pick a few at random, and those chosen will get the letter or e-mail inviting them to the final auditions. Meridith filled out each application differently, with her interests worded differently in each, with different drawings on the border of the applications. You have to stand out somehow to hopefully catch their attention.
There were a few people I saw during all three shows that I would happily give up my spot for in order to see them on the show. They need to be on the show. Based on what Mom said about people on the show seeming subdued, I may have a better chance than I think I do.
And the phantoms remain in the Venetian Theatre. The ghosts of Phantom of the Opera and soon Soul2Soul and future productions that will arrive and then leave either months or years later. Things always change in this city. But one thing that will never change is my happiness at the opportunity for free events that let me see places for which I would have to pay exorbitant amounts. This was the best way to save 80 bucks or more to see the Venetian Theatre. And the main feature on the stage is a "C" with its rear in the air and the arms of the C on the stage, lit in blue. That looks like the centerpiece for the Soul2Soul show, the one thing that couldn't be removed from the stage since it looks like it's attached to it, that is if Tim McGraw and Faith Hill use anything else besides that. Stools, of course, but I think that's it. For me, it's enough to have seen this theater, the only time I ever will like this, just like when we waited along with the rest of the crowd in the 1 OAK Nightclub in early March at the Mirage before we were all dispatched to the Beatles LOVE theater for the live broadcast of American Idol. If I make it to the final audition and then am invited to be on Wheel of Fortune, I'll do it. It means Mom would get to see the show live, and that's the only reason for me.
The theater had been remodeled since the show closed, with more seats extending to the stage, which I don't think could have been done before. The music of the night needed more room.
I wondered where the Phantom was now, what he was doing now. After the show closed, Anthony Crivello, our Phantom, went back to Broadway to audition, and I think he landed in one show. Maybe he's still in that show or maybe that show closed too. Nevertheless, he was a great supporter of Las Vegas like former Playboy Playmate Holly Madison, even gamely appearing on Wheel of Fortune during those Phantom years, whenever it was in Las Vegas for a few weeks.
Tim McGraw and Faith Hill's Soul2Soul is there now for a little while longer. Then they'll leave and be replaced with Priscilla Queen of the Desert. I don't know if the balcony seating on both sides of the theater is still used (I couldn't see the seats up there, if there were any), but with those offerings, I don't think they need to. There had been some buzz about Soul2Soul before it started, naturally. But it doesn't sound like it was a major hit. McGraw and Hill don't live here, instead flying in when it's time to perform on weekends, and that's understandable because they have other business in their careers to attend to.
I think if the box office take had been monstrous, Venetian officials would have tried to entice them with everything they could have ever wanted to stay longer. And guaranteed, Vegas Deluxe (www.vegasdeluxe.com), led by Robin Leach, would have had all the details of those negotiations. But there's nothing. As it is, the only big thing besides the impending remodel of the outside of New York-New York to build a park modeled on Madison Square Park, with shops and restaurants and a Hershey store, connecting it and the Monte Carlo and to an eventual 20,000-seat sports stadium, is that Olivia Newton-John will begin her mini-residency at the Flamingo possibly at the start of summer, performing when Donny & Marie aren't.
It's said that Tim McGraw wants to go back out on tour, and that's reasonable, but I don't think this show is going to come back. There's no word on what will follow the limited run of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, though that box office take will likely determine if they extend it, but I think they need something fresh, what with the Strip beginning to change in various places, such as the old Sahara becoming SLS Las Vegas next year, and an Asian-themed resort called Resorts World Las Vegas under construction for a 2016 opening.
But at that moment, at 11:40 in the morning, I'm sitting in a mostly empty row, across from an exit, next to Meridith, Dad and Mom. We're part of the audience for auditions for Wheel of Fortune. We filled out the small yellow applications outside the theater, while waiting in line, and dropped them in the tall box outside the theater. As we learn from the Jim Carrey-influenced, pop culture-loving host, whose name I've long forgotten, the applications are placed in a wire mesh drum and spun around and around, with applications chosen at random. Those names called go on stage, first backstage to sign in and have their photo taken. Then they stand on one of the five X's placed diagonally. The host interviews them, asking about their jobs, their hobbies, their passions, and it's there that they must be at their most enthusiastic, their most charismatic because that's what they're looking for in future contestants. Those contestants on stage would find out in two months either by a letter in the mail or by e-mail that they've been invited to the final auditions in Las Vegas. If they make it through those, they're on the show. Factoring in 6 weeks of shows being taped in July and August, which is five shows in a week (taped in one day, of course, which means the production will be here for six days), that's 30 shows. Three contestants per show is 90 contestants total. The odds are long, but we are in Las Vegas. We still hope.
Then the host spins the wheel on stage to determine what prize all the contestants will get (t-shirt, hat, mini-pack with a black shoulder strap and a keychain and "blinky pin," as the host called it, inside; or a "Surprise" that includes all those prizes and either a duffel bag or a smaller cooler bag), and then the contestants play the Speed-Up Round, which is the round when time's running out on the show and Pat Sajak gives the wheel a final spin, led by Morgan Matthews, who fills the Vanna White role for the Wheelmobile events.
The first show began and the host introduced himself and explained all this, and then introduced Morgan Matthews, who spun the drum and took out the first five applications, handing each to the host as she went along. I was surprised when Dad was called to the stage, and then I was called right after him, causing the host to comment, "A double shot of Aronskys!"
Originally, I didn't want to audition. When Mom heard about the Wheelmobile coming to the Venetian, Meridith immediately wanted to, and then Dad did too. I didn't, because while I'm not a stiff personality, I'm not that charismatic or demonstrative. I can get lively in conversation, but usually with one other person or a small group of people. It was Dad and Meridith's thing, not mine.
But then, I went to see Jeff Bridges, one of my heroes, in concert on Friday night at the Chrome Showroom at Santa Fe Station. Front row seat. Well worth the price ($88.50 via Ticketmaster, immediately when tickets went on sale), and my seat was right where Jeff Bridges stood while he played his guitars and sang, and directly in front of the keyboard on which he performed a few songs, including two from The Big Lebowski. When he played that keyboard and sang, he loomed over me at that angle and I watched him the entire time, his eyes closed throughout most of the songs he sang at that keyboard. I was in awe of the clear passion he had for his music, and on the way home, thinking about all that Jeff Bridges does in taking photos on the sets of his movies, drawing, writing his first book with Bernie Glassman, his Zen master, working to eliminate childhood hunger, attending Zen conventions, making movies of course, and now music, I thought to myself that I wanted to be a renaissance man at 63 years old like he is. But then I thought, "Why not start now?" I decided in the car that I would sign up for the chance to audition for Wheel of Fortune, but not for the purpose of becoming a renaissance man like Jeff Bridges. Mom has been watching Wheel of Fortune since Chuck Woolery hosted from 1975 to 1981. I wanted to increase our chances of getting tickets for at least one of the tapings, besides fighting like hell to get them when they become available in June, so why not increase them three-fold?
When I dashed down the steps to the stage after my name was called, following Dad as he did the same, I felt like I wasn't in my body. Was this real? Was this actually happening? I thought Meridith would be called first. She wanted it the most. But there I was, reaching the stage after figuring out how to get there, since there was a curtain in front of me that I thought led backstage (I didn't go behind it, though), and then three stairs immediately leading to the stage. I took the latter and was led backstage to a long table to sign in and then one of the production assistants, wearing a shirt that said "Spin This.", took a photo of me. Before that, I joked, "This is better than the DMV!"
I took my place on stage, the last "X", closest to the audience. I waited as the first three contestants were interviewed by the host, and then Dad, and I was a little nervous. But once called upon by the host, I went up there, told him and the audience that I'm a substitute elementary school library assistant in the Clark County School District, hoping for a full-time position. He asked me what I like to do, and I said, "Reading, writing, movies, pinball, presidential history and....more movies." (I think I got it all, because that comprises my life.) He zeroed in on presidential history, asking me who my favorite president is. "43 presidents and you want to know right now who my favorite president is?" I joked to him. In hindsight, I know there are 44, but I blanked by one.
I quickly thought about it and said "William Howard Taft," mainly because I'm reading about him right now and he does fascinate me. The host asked why and I said, "Because he didn't want to be president. He wanted to be Chief Justice of the United States and later on, he got his dream when Warren G. Harding nominated him and..." I'm not the lecturing type, but maybe I was still a little nervous because the host sensed I was going on too long and amiably moved me along with, "He really knows his presidents." I didn't mind that he moved me along since he had a show to run. I wished I could have compressed Taft's history fast enough, including the fact that he ran for president because his wife, Helen "Nellie" Taft, wanted to be First Lady, and he was devoted to her. I knew I couldn't include the fact that Taft was responsible for the Supreme Court building as we know it today, wanting a separate, grand building for this separate branch of the government, but he died before it was completed. That would have been impossible, but I wanted to get to Harding nominating Taft to be Chief Justice. Nervousness overpowers all, though, even when you don't actually feel nervous while on stage.
The puzzle began. The category was "Event." I think I guessed "L" or "M," but neither were in the puzzle. I knew what it was about a minute later, but the host was back to the beginning of the row and the fourth person before me in the row solved it: "Toga Party." As the host put it, just because you're on stage does not guarantee you a final audition, and just because you solved the puzzle does not guarantee you a final audition. They're looking for the whole package, with charisma, energy, and puzzle-solving ability all together, which flummoxed Mom after we had left the Venetian later in the day because all the time that she's watched the show, most of those people seem very subdued, so she doesn't know exactly what they're looking for if they seem all the same.
After leaving the stage, I went back up to our row, and we watched the rest of the first show. By the end, Meridith still hadn't been called up, so we went back to the elevator, downstairs (Mom uses a cane, so we don't use stairs), and got back in line for the second show where Meridith filled out a blue application and put it in the tall box outside the theater. We went back to the elevator, back to the second (or third?) floor, back to our row. Second show, no luck.
We got back in line for the third and final show of the day and Meridith filled out another application, a different color. And no luck again. After the final names for the second show were called, we got up and left the theater to get back in line before everyone else not called did the same thing. And after the final names were called for the third show, we left. What reason was there to sit for the rest of that show? Mom gave Meridith the option of going back on Sunday for those shows, for the hope of being called, but Meridith said she has three chances with those three applications, so that was enough for her. The host also said that those who aren't called on the stage still have a shot. During each show, he said he's going to take the remaining applications with him back to Los Angeles, pick a few at random, and those chosen will get the letter or e-mail inviting them to the final auditions. Meridith filled out each application differently, with her interests worded differently in each, with different drawings on the border of the applications. You have to stand out somehow to hopefully catch their attention.
There were a few people I saw during all three shows that I would happily give up my spot for in order to see them on the show. They need to be on the show. Based on what Mom said about people on the show seeming subdued, I may have a better chance than I think I do.
And the phantoms remain in the Venetian Theatre. The ghosts of Phantom of the Opera and soon Soul2Soul and future productions that will arrive and then leave either months or years later. Things always change in this city. But one thing that will never change is my happiness at the opportunity for free events that let me see places for which I would have to pay exorbitant amounts. This was the best way to save 80 bucks or more to see the Venetian Theatre. And the main feature on the stage is a "C" with its rear in the air and the arms of the C on the stage, lit in blue. That looks like the centerpiece for the Soul2Soul show, the one thing that couldn't be removed from the stage since it looks like it's attached to it, that is if Tim McGraw and Faith Hill use anything else besides that. Stools, of course, but I think that's it. For me, it's enough to have seen this theater, the only time I ever will like this, just like when we waited along with the rest of the crowd in the 1 OAK Nightclub in early March at the Mirage before we were all dispatched to the Beatles LOVE theater for the live broadcast of American Idol. If I make it to the final audition and then am invited to be on Wheel of Fortune, I'll do it. It means Mom would get to see the show live, and that's the only reason for me.
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