Las Vegas: What's open and closed amid coronavirus - Los ...

I’ve been seeing a lot of negativity around here recently, and rightfully so. We lost Iowa. I know that’s not an easy fact to take in given the amount of time and effort put into the state from the campaign, staff, and volunteers, but we have to face the truth. We got out-organized.
So what do we do about it?
I’m the author of these previous 4 posts if you have the time to read them. If not, its ok. This post is very much a standalone post. And probably my most important post thus far:
Part 1: https://www.reddit.com/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/b17slb/ive_worked_on_multiple_campaigns_and_managed_a/
Part 2: https://www.reddit.com/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/b9yyyh/getting_andrew_yang_to_the_white_house_step_2/
Part 3: https://www.reddit.com/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/c1h0lj/getting_andrew_yang_to_the_white_house_part_3_at/
Part 4: https://www.reddit.com/YangForPresidentHQ/comments/ds6rh0/getting_andrew_to_the_white_house_part_4/
In this post, I will detail our best path forward. Our best path to shock the political world and get the American people and the media to take us seriously. And it’s not what you think. Andrew has been campaigning tirelessly in IA and NH, but his best chances are not there. Our entire campaign, our entire country’s future rests on us winning Nevada. There is no other state more prime for our message and our vision than Nevada.
I’ve been canvassing in Nevada since November of 2019. I have knocked on hundreds of doors and spoken to hundreds, maybe thousands of Nevadans. We have a chance to take top 3 in Nevada. When textbankers told me to go to IA, I chose to travel to Nevada. And I’m glad I did. The political environment and campaign infrastructure are much better in Nevada. Nevada (and more specifically one city in NV) is a state full of Yang Gang, they just don’t know it yet. Nevada has early voting which has already begun, but their caucus is on Feb 22nd. Nevada is our last stand. And I will detail in this post exactly why we can and should win Nevada. If we don’t, that could very well be the end of this campaign. So buckle up, this is important.
Nevada is the third state to vote. In addition, like Iowa they are also a caucus state. No one was expecting us to win Iowa. Heck, it’s probably a good thing we didn’t win Iowa. With the debacle going on there, our win would have been overshadowed by the IA Democratic Party screwup anyways. That being said, no one is expecting us to win NH either. (If you want to go to NH, please still go. But from this time of posting, we have 5 days to convince NH, we have two weeks to convince NV – do the math). If we lose Nevada however, that is three in a row. More than enough reason for the media to write us off for the rest of the primary cycle. We need to prove them all wrong. We SHALL NOT let the Bernie Bros pass!
We can do this because Nevada has favorable Demographics, the Issues/Politics resonate with its voters, and the Nevada Staff/Campaign are the best I’ve seen.

Demographics:
To win Nevada, we only need to focus on one location. Unlike Iowa and New Hampshire where the population is spread out (there are 99 counties throughout the state of IA), Nevada only has 16 counties and most of them are very sparsely populated. The most important county is Clark County, and the most important city in that county is…..you guessed it, LAS VEGAS. The Las Vegas metropolitan area includes Boulder City, Enterprise, Henderson, North Las Vegas, Summerlin, Winchester, Paradise…etc. The Las Vegas Metro area has 2.2 Million people living in it. The entire state of Nevada has a population of ~ 3 Million people. The Las Vegas metro area comprises of more than 70% of the entire population of Nevada. If we win Las Vegas, we win Nevada. Its that simple.
In addition, you know what Las Vegas has that IA and NH did not? A group of people whom tend to like Yang automatically: MINORITIES!! Las Vegas has a huge Chinatown and we have a Yang office there! Las Vegas had a Chinese New Year’s parade two weeks ago! Did NH or IA have a Luna New Year Parade? FUCK NO! Yang Gang was there and walked in it! We got cheers from the audience! Yang Gang has ran ads in Chinese media for Yang. There are at least several precincts that are majority Asian people! That better be automatic delegate pickups for us. We just need to turn them out!
Las Vegas, unlike Iowa or NH, is very compact. You can finish canvassing 50 doors easily because the houses are close to each other. If you’re really hitting it, you can easily do 100 doors a day. You dont need to hit a few, then drive several blocks. You can simply drive to a neighborhood and bang out door to door very efficiently. Also, unlike IA and NH, it’s a sunny/cool 60-70 degrees in Las Vegas. So people are actually out doing stuff.

The Issues/Politics:
There is no other city where the narrative and issues Andrew Yang champions appear more salient than in Las Vegas. Las Vegas is at the center of the automation revolution, and you can look no further than the famous Las Vegas strip. If you have the money (seriously, it can get pricey) stay on the strip and talk to every bartender, waitress, blackjack dealer, housekeeper, bellman, etc you can. In Las Vegas, the service employees win the elections.
This New York Times article details it very well. (If you cant read it due to paywall, don’t worry, I’ll explain) (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/12/us/politics/nevada-caucus-2020-culinary-union.html)
The most important special interest groups in Las Vegas are the culinary workers union, Local 226, and the bartenders union, Local 165. These unions see automation in front of them every day. MGM recently automated most of their backhouse bartenders. Servers now pick up drinks from a robot and deliver them to customers. I spoke with a bar manager in the Bellagio and he said that in their contracts, there are clauses that dictate they can be automated away by a machine anytime. And they have to be ok with that. So Andrew Yang's message of the Freedom Dividend resonates. In addition, there is one issue the unions care about more than anything else and that is Healthcare. However, this is the best part: they HATE Medicare for All. Not one union worker I spoke with wanted Medicare for All. Why? Because their unions have negotiated for them stellar healthcare for years and years. They love their healthcare. And they don’t want the government coming in and taking away all the hard work their union has done for them. If you bring up Yang to your housekeeper, your waiter, your bartender, I guarantee you their first question to you will be: “What will happen to my healthcare?”. And unlike Bernie, we can say “You can keep it”. (Note: Biden also said that when he visited the unions). If Andrew Yang can win the endorsements of the Local 226 and Local 165, we win Las Vegas/NV. It was these unions whom delivered Hillary Clinton her victory in 2016. Now Andrew has not met with the unions and their leaders yet, and I hope that the campaign is reaching out to them. But until that happens, it us up to US to talk to as many union members as possible.
(Note also: Nevadans have a bad taste in their mouth for Bernie, especially after how the Bernie people acted in the NV State convention in 2016. Maybe using death threats was not the best look for the Bernie campaign. Just sayin: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/17/us/politics/bernie-sanders-supporters-nevada.html)
If you stay on the strip, talk to every employee you can. You can change minds. I Yanged an entire bar by myself when I spoke with the Bar Manager about the Freedom Dividend, automation, and that Yang wont take away his Healthcare. He then bought me a free drink, gave me his card, and committed to taking all his employees to the caucus. Imagine if the Yang Gang descended onto Vegas and did this at every restaurant, every bar, every hotel, and every venue. We would win Las Vegas, and get free shots too.
After speaking to many Las Vegas voters, I’ve come to believe that they don’t like politicians. There’s a reason why Tom Steyer has blanketed the state with his ads. Because Nevadans don’t trust politicians. Thus, Yang is a natural alternative to the rest of the field. Steyer may have some traction, but almost everyone I spoke with didn’t like the fact that Steyer was trying to buy the election. Everyone from Uber drivers to strippers (seriously) found Steyer annoying.
Something unique to Vegas that you don’t see anywhere else is the way wealth inequality unravels itself. Las Vegas is the place where the rich and famous come to party and blow their money away. Yet the residents here don’t scorn or hate them. Bernie and Warren’s rhetoric of the “greed and the corruption” fall on deaf ears here because in Las Vegas, the rich treat service employees well. Talk to any bartendeserver long enough and they’ll tell you about that one time when Rihanna came in and left a $10K tip on her tab. The rich come here to live out their vices, yet they are gracious and generous to the people who serve them. You can spend upwards of $5000 at a nightclub and $20 for a drink on the strip, but once you leave the strip prices drop by at least 75%. So residents don’t feel the price inflation. Don’t want to spend money? Party in downtown Vegas, where a drink is only $3- $4. The residents of Las Vegas don’t hate the rich, and they don’t want a “revolution”. They just want to make enough money so that sometimes they can sit down and enjoy a football game with the high rollers. The Freedom Dividend is the ticket to that life.
The Staff
Last, but not least, is the staff. Speaking from meeting as many of them as I have, the Las Vegas campaign staff are absolutely phenomenal. Mark Peckham, the NV state director did a great job picking his team and it shows. Reading through the threads I see talk about the Iowa staff being unprofessional and not ready for the caucus. I see talk about IA not training their precinct captains correctly, and offices hiring people with no experience. I can tell you, that is certainly NOT the case in Las Vegas. Almost every staff member I spoke with was professional and experienced. I consider myself pretty experienced in politics. There was not one staff member I met who didn’t know their shit. Precinct captain training? The NV staff has been doing that on a WEEKLY basis since November! Sign up for canvassing and are late 30 mins, you bet your ass a staffer will call you up and find out where you are. I remembered when I was considering going to IA and I wanted to know if the IA campaign needed a data analytics guy (my specialty). I asked several staff and never got an answer back. I asked the same question to Las Vegas staff and I got an answer back in seconds. The Las Vegas staff know their shit and they’re here to win. Even their volunteer coordinators are dedicated and knowledgeable. They have daily tables at UNLV, and weekly well attended Yang Hangs. Their offices are clean and open on time. Yang Gangs have houses you can stay in free of charge, and volunteers happily drive you around in a Tesla to get you to your canvassing locations. They’re that fucking good. Convinced yet? Here are the contacts you should add/follow on facebook:
Eileen Patterson, Las Vegas Volunteer Director
Gavin Williams, Field Organizer
Alex Pitarro, Field Organizer
Alyssa Monet Manson, Yang Gang House Leader
Nick Joke (not his real name, but his name on facebook), Volunteer organizer
(these are not all the staff, just the ones I can remember off the top of my head. There are several others, almost all are sharp).
Join the Vegas Yang Gang Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/vegasyanggang/
The Las Vegas Yang Gang has a website: https://vegasyanggang.com/
The following are their active offices and hours:
Addresses:
Chinatown Office
4276 Spring Mountain Rd Suite 203 Las Vegas, NV 89102
Henderson Office
580 E. Windmill Lane Suite 130 Las Vegas, NV 89123
North Las Vegas Office
2815 W Lake Mead Blvd Las Vegas, NV 89106
Hours
Monday—Saturday: 10:00AM–8:00PM
Sunday: 12:00PM–8:00PM
(Note: I emphasize Vegas because it is the population center of Nevada. However, if you would like to help win other parts of Nevada, Reno is worthy of helping too. I’ve met several Reno organizers and they are all very capable people.)
Lastly, Las Vegas is truly an amazing city. Nothing beats canvassing 50 doors a day and then settling down to a workout, a spa, and a buffet. Want to Yang marijuana aficionados because Yang has the best drug policy? Great, its legal to buy weed in NV. Go to one of the hundreds of dispensaries in Vegas. Want to Yang sex workers and strippers because Yang wants to decriminalize sex work? Great, Vegas has the best strip clubs in the world. Want to party hard and work hard? Great, Vegas has the best nightclubs and bars you could ever dream of. Want to Yang sports gamblers because Yang wants to legalize online gambling, you can do that too!
So lets leave all our chips on the table Yang Gang. There is no other city more prepared to be won than Las Vegas. Lets lay it all out on the floor and say we did our best. Make Las Vegas our Last Stand. And if we win, if we do, that will be more than enough momentum to carry us to victory on Super Tuesday. Nevada/Las Vegas is better representative of America than any other state/city so far, and America will recognize that. If we win Vegas, we carry enough momentum to finish well in Super Tuesday, guaranteeing our bargaining power in a brokered convention in July.
I hope this is not the last time I write these posts. And I hope you all can join me. What are you waiting for? Buy your ticket. We’re going to Vegas baby.
thank u, next.
Note: last but not least, if you can donate, please donate to the Ken Jeong fundraiser this coming 2/13, will help us hit NV campaigning strong!:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/ay-events-lv-1215
Edit: Thank you so much for everyone giving me awards! I just want Yang to win and I firmly believe this is our last stand. We’re in the Endgame now....

The Case for Cathrine Cortez Masto as Vice President

For those already in town and looking for something to do this weekend, here's 16 local ideas...

For anyone who's back in town already and looking for something to do this weekend, I wanted to share some events that are happening at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg and the surrounding New River Valley if you need them...
1. Collegiate Track & Field: Two-Day 2020 Virginia Tech Invitational Virginia Tech Rector Field House, Virginia Tech Friday, January 17, 2020, 5:00 - 9:00 PM and Saturday, January 18, 2020, 11:00 AM - 4:00 PM Admission: Free Watch the Virginia Tech Men's and Women's Track & Field teams kickoff the 2020 season with the annual two-day Virginia Tech Invitational. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=536002
2. Kat Mills in Concert Eastern Divide Brewing, Blacksburg Friday, January 17, 2020, 6:00 - 9:00 PM Admission: Free Kat Mills is a songwriter, folk singer, guitarist nodding to 60s and 70s troubadour traditions, and openly commenting on the aches and triumphs of the moment. Her vintage guitars and throwback threads remind you of another era, but her soulful original songs and stories are for the here and now. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=534571
3. Wave Nite IX featuring Local & Regional Underground Electronic Music with 9 Performers The Milk Parlor, Blacksburg Friday, January 17, 2020, 9:00 PM - 02:00 AM Admission: $5.00 Sine Wave Surfers presents Wave Nite IX featuring local and regional underground electronic music from nine performers including Richmond's Dear Elvira, Blacksburg's Electrobro Lexington's Trickle Down Effects, Needham, Massachusetts' Sleazy Lettuce, Euclid, Ohio's Kidd Crash and more. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=535991
4. Floyd 2020 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration Floyd County High School, Floyd Saturday, January 18, 2020, 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM Admission: Free The MLK Celebration Committee of Community Educational Resource Coalition (CERC) presents the Floyd 2020 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration. The Unity Choir will perform a celebration of song and guest speaker Reverend William L. Lee will share his personal experience with the Civil Rights Movement and with Dr. King's words and work. A hospitality buffet of finger foods will be available in the cafeteria. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=535705
5. Men's Basketball: Syracuse vs. Virginia Tech Cassell Coliseum, Virginia Tech Saturday, January 18, 2020, 12:00 PM Admission: Sold Out, Stub Hub: Starting at $7.00 before fees The upstart Virginia Tech Men's Basketball team hosts ACC conference opponent Syracuse University. For games that are sold out, tickets can be found on StubHuyb or generally from ticket scalpers outside the coliseum before the game. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=534943
6. Collegiate Swimming & Diving: UVA vs. Virginia Tech Christiansburg Aquatic Center, Christiansburg Saturday, January 18, 2020, 1:00 - 3:00 PM Admission: Free The Virginia Tech Swimming and Diving team hosts a swimming meet with in-state and ACC opponent the University of Virginia. This swim meet also serves as the annual Breast Cancer Awareness meet honoring the life of Margaret Soulen Gilbert, a record-setting swimmer for the Hokies in the 1980’s who lost her battle with breast cancer. Fans are encouraged to wear pink and arrive early to receive free wristbands. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=535576
7. Artist Reception for Pipi Miller Blacksburg Wine Lab, Blacksburg Saturday, January 18, 2020, 1:00 - 3:00 PM Admission: Free Pipi Miller is a fine art photographer from Giles County. Her current body of work on exhibit is titled "Reierated Histories". Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=535885
8. Outdoor Laser Tag Pandapas Pond, Blacksburg UPDATE: Moved to Sunday, January 19, 1:00 - 4:00 PM Due to Expected Rain Saturday, January 18, 2020, 1:00 - 4:00 PM Admission: Free The Laser Tag Club at Virginia Tech (LCat) presents Outdoor Laser Tag. The Laser Tag Club will provide all equipment. All games are played in the woods so dress appropriately as there is always the risk of poison ivy, ticks, thorns, mud, etc. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=535886
9. Leslie Brooks in Concert India Garden Restaurant, Blacksburg Saturday, January 18, 2020, 6:00 - 8:30 PM Admission: Free Leslie Brooks is a singer-songwriter, performing solo with guitar, playing jazz, folk, blues, rockin' country and popular favorites originally from Kentucky and now resides in Virginia. She has played the best venues in a 16-state area, as well as in Norway and Monte Carlo. Opened for Heart, James Taylor, Bob Margolin and Willie Nelson to name a few. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=534460
10. Joshua Eadie & The Common Wealth in Concert Rising Silo Farm Brewery, Blacksburg Saturday, January 18, 2020, 6:00 - 9:00 PM Admission: Free Joshua Eadie and the Common Wealth are a folk trio from the greater Richmond, Virginia area. Traditional folk, bluegrass, and contemporary classics are all part of the band's repertoire, as well as popular original material about life in the Old Dominion. Rising Silo Brewery is a family-friendly, dog friendly vibe and all are welcome. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=535675
11. Old Time Dance with Gap Civil Old Time Band Floyd Country Store, Floyd Saturday, January 18, 2020, 7:30 - 10:30 PM Admission: $8.00 Gap Civil is an old time band from Sparta, NC. Bring your family and your dancing shoes for great music in Floyd. In addition, there is a Flatfoot and Two-Step Dance Workshop before the dance with Maggie Oakes-Chitwood that requires an RSVP. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=535378
12. UFC 246: Conor McGregor vs. Donald Cerrone Buffalo Wild Wings Grill & Bar, Blacksburg Saturday, January 18, 2020, 8:00 PM - TBD Admission: Free Buffalo Wild Wings Grill & Bar will be showing UFC 246 featuring the return of the "Notorious" Conor McGregor vs. "Cowboy" Donald Cerrone broadcast live from the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. In addition, there will be other numerous main card matches and prelim fights. Admission is free however seating is limited so arrive early to secure your spot. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=535692
13. Capricorn Bash 2020: The Buck and Griz Show Dogtown Roadhouse, Floyd Saturday, January 18, 2020, 8:00 - 11:30 PM Admission: $3.00 Join Buck & Griz (Timbo Sims, Raj Gupta, Jason Tice, Stuart Angel and Whitney Lewis) for a mid-winter throw-down! The Buck and Griz Show features New River Valley area jammers Whitney Lewis and Tim Sims performing great original Americana and Rock tunes including stories and occasional jokes. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=535181
14. The Kind Thieves in Concert The Milk Parlor, Blacksburg Saturday, January 18, 2020, 9:00 PM - 12:00 AM Admission: $7.00 The Kind Thieves are a bluegrass and folk band based out of Beckley, West Virginia. Their influences includes the Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, Punch Brothers, Allman Brotehrs and Eagles. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=535986
15. Tackle The Tower Christiansburg Aquatic Center, Christiansburg Sunday, January 19, 2020, 2:00 - 4:00 PM Daily Admission Fee: Ages 3 & Up: $5.00 Jump off the 3-meter board or 5-meter tower. Once a month the five-meter platform and three-meter spring boards are opened to the public. Note: 5 meters = 16.4 feet. Participants are required to pass a 25 yard swim test before diving. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=534795
16. 2020 Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration Schaeffer Memorial Baptist Church, Christiansburg Sunday, January 19, 2020, 3:00 - 5:00 PM Admission: Free The Montgomery-Radford-Floyd NAACP Branch #7092 presents their 2020 Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration. Join them in celebrating the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Guest speaker Reverend C. Coles Casey pastor of First Baptist Church on Rock Road in Radford, Virginia will speak about Martin Luther King's legacy. There will be a special offering to benefit the Samuel H. Clark Memorial Scholarship. Link: http://www.nextthreedays.com/FeaturedEventDetails.cfm?E=535573

Welcome back and have a great weekend!

25 Jobs in Las Vegas Hiring Now!

Day 5 of Shutdown: Timeline of Events so Far (3/22)

Aerophobia – Patient Record LSA6041778-W

Company Name	Title	City
Home Depot	Freight/Receiving	Las Vegas
Robert Half	Network Administrator	Las Vegas
Healthy Living at Home	Home Health Registered Nurse RN	Las Vegas
Wynn Resorts	Digital Designer (Interior Design) Wynn Design & Development	Las Vegas

HomeXpress Mortgage Corp	Mortgage account executive	Las Vegas
Triage Staffing	Travel Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit Nurse (CVICU RN), Winfield, IL	North Las Vegas
Shake Shack	Restaurant Shift Manager	Las Vegas
North Vista Hospital	Sitter Per Diem - 12 Hr - NVNV Nursing Float	North Las Vegas
Cafe Rio Inc.	Restaurant team member	Las Vegas
Pride Transport	OTR CDL A Truck Driver - Earn Up to $55 CPM - $5,000 Sign On Bonus!	North Las Vegas
Humane Network	Executive Director	North Las Vegas
Department of Veteran Affairs	Seeking BC/BE Oncologist or Hematologist/Oncologist for VA Southern Nevada Healthcare System in Las Vegas NV	n Las Vegas
U.S. Xpress	U.S. Xpress is excited to announce Straight Pay- A New Way to Team Pay!	North Las Vegas
Taurean Consulting	Senior Security Engineer	Las Vegas
Resort Lifestyle Communities	Buffet Attendant	Las Vegas
RNnetwork	Travel RN-ICU job in Nevada	Las Vegas


Home Depot	Merchandising	Las Vegas
Home Depot	Freight/Receiving	Las Vegas
Education First	Online English Teacher - Start at $20 per hour!	North Las Vegas
Home Depot	Freight/Receiving	North Las Vegas
Home Depot	Customer Service/Sales	Las Vegas
BioLife Plasma Services	Plasma Center Nurse- RN, LPN, EMT-P	North Las Vegas

Patient Name: Lucan-Smith, Autumn
Age: 37
Sex: Female
Diagnosis: Aerophobia; fear of flying.
The following is a speech to text transcript spanning multiple sessions between Patient LSA6041778-W and Dr. H. Phineas Denton, who has annotated it with his own notes. The passenger manifest of Patient LSA6041778-W’s ill-fated flight suggests another candidate of interest may have been present. This, however, is likely a coincidence, as neither case has an obvious link.
Agent 11 recovered these from a locked desk drawer in Denton’s home office in Boulder City, NV. Denton reported a robbery when he returned home from running errands. Recommend retraining or reassignment for Agent 11.
Ms. Lucan-Smith was removed from Southwest Airlines flight 712 in a sorry state. My patient was hyperventilating to the point of losing consciousness, reawakening, and beginning the process again. I hesitate to call the period between passing out a "lucid" state because her extreme phobia had rendered her unable to respond to any stimulus. She whispered "no" to herself repeatedly, shaking and crying, until her body went limp for a few moments. I wasn't present for this, myself, but I have watched footage sent over from McCarran Airport. By the time Ms. Lucan-Smith arrived at my office, she was no longer panicking but the extreme fear had exhausted her. She fell asleep several times while we talked before I decided to end the session.
Denton: Hi, Ms. Smith. I’m Dr. Denton. Before we get started, can I get you a water or a soda?
Lucan-Smith has her arms wrapped around her even though, in typical Vegas fashion, it is decidedly warm outside. Her eyes are red and she has a tissue clutched in one fist.
Lucan-Smith: It’s Lucan-Smith, actually. Hyphenated. I wanted to keep my maiden name for my work. And nothing, thank you. I’m fine.
Denton: I’m going to grab a cherry Pepsi for myself. What line of work are you in?
Lucan-Smith sits in the large, plush chair I keep in the corner of the room. Patients with anxiety – though not claustrophobic patients – usually choose that chair.
Lucan-Smith: Physics. Well, physics with a little geology, actually. I investigate light diffraction in different types of crystals. Lately, I’ve been looking at ambient light data from NOAA satellites and how it relates to crystalline structures in local geologic features.
Denton: Well, that’s… pretty fascinating, actually. What is the NOAA?
Lucan-Smith slowly releases herself from her own embrace as she talks. I hand her a bottle of water as I return from my mini-fridge and she leans forward to accept it.
Lucan-Smith: The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. They own the National Weather Service and all the… network of satellites up there collecting terabytes of data every day. It’s a really valuable resource.
Denton: It sounds that way. I might ask you to tell me more about your work off the clock. I bet you’ve got some findings you’re dying to tell someone who will listen.
She smiles.
Lucan-Smith: I do.
Denton: So. You had an eventful flight.
Lucan-Smith: You could say that.
Denton: What I got from the EMTs says another passenger – man, I really shouldn’t say this since I’m a mental health professional – another passenger went nuts and tried to open the door of your plane. My god. And then he was restrained by three flight attendants.
Lucan-Smith: He got free at one point and went for the emergency release handle again.
Denton: Jesus. Sorry, excuse my language. That’s just-
Lucan-Smith: Oh, it’s fine. I said a lot worse on the plane.
I nod, trying to convey approval and acceptance at that. I can’t say I would have done different.
Denton: And then what happened?
Her bottle of water slips out of her hands and falls to floor as her eyes shut briefly.
Lecan-Smith: Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m just so tired. You wanted to know about after he, uh, after they got him. I… Well, I’ve never been good at flying. My dad flew a lot when I was a kid and I remember being creeped out by the whole thing. I have to pop a Xanax or two every time I fly and, I know this is bad, but I chase it with a beer when I’m really shaky. When that guy tried to open the door, though, I couldn’t keep my mind off all the horrible things that could happen. They just kept fucking popping in there. Everyone getting sucked out the door, heads slamming against the frame and exploding in a mess of blood and brains. The plane depressurizing and freezing everyone to death. A body going through the engine and fucking it like those geese in that Sully Sullenberger plane, then the whole plane falling. What it would feel like in my stomach. What I would see out the window, all those green and tan squares growing like a bad acid trip. Wanting desperately to die so I didn’t have to watch my fate race up at me. And then fire. If I survived the crash, burning to death in jet fuel.
Lucan-Smith: It just kept playing on repeat like a DVD menu from hell. And when it stopped, I was in an ambulance on my way to the psych ward at Desert Springs. Then I called up my insurance and ended up here.
I need to note here that my patient is describing psychosis. While commonly associated with severe mental illnesses, use of some controlled substances, and even types of meditation, it can be a symptom of an extremely stressful episode. In short, Autumn’s consciousness was not present in the physical world. She was elsewhere, in nightmare land. Prior to Autumn, I have never come across a patient with a phobia so severe it brought on a fully psychotic episode. This is a profound case of aerophobia.
Denton: You said flying’s always been tough for you. Do you remember a time when it was ever easier? What I mean is, did it become less scary for a time and then become scarier after, say, really bad turbulence? Or maybe it gets scarier every time?
Lucan-Smith: I think it’s gotten worse…
Her eyes fall shut again for about half a second before she jerks herself awake.
Lucan-Smith: Whoa. Oh my gosh, I’m sorry! I think it’s gotten worse each time I set foot on an airplane. Maybe I think my time is closer to being at hand after each successful landing. How many do I get?
Her eyes flutter.
Denton: Ms. Lucan-Smith – Autumn – you’ve had a rough day. I have a free appointment tomorrow at 11. Why don’t you come back then? No charge for today’s visit.
Autumn leaves and I have my secretary call to book her a cheap room for the night. It’s at a casino and probably stinks of cigarettes and buffet farts, but it’s cheap. The next session is fairly uneventful; Autumn tells me about her past history with flying which is, predictably, troubled. In phobia cases, I usually try to use either exposure therapy (gradually easing the patient into their discomfort zone) or implosion therapy (exposing the patient to the most extreme version of their discomfort). These are both behaviorist methods and the best tool for the job depends on both the patient’s personality and the nature of the fear. For Autumn, however, I don’t think either will work. She just experienced the most extreme aerophobic implosion therapy I can imagine and came out much worse than she went in.
I’m not a Freudian psychologist, and I often think hypnotherapy has a lot in common with good fertilizer: they’re both bullshit. Autumn did, however, mention that her father flew a lot for work and that she used to go with him. She wasn’t scared of flying as a very young child, but started to associate negative emotions with it around age 7 or 8. I have to wonder if one of those early flights ran into a problem she’s either forgotten or doesn’t want to remember.
Autumn is effectively stuck in Nevada while her husband and son are in Tallahassee, FL with Autumn’s mother-in-law. She desperately wants to be with them, and I can understand that. I want to help her be able to board a flight and find comfort with her family. With that in mind, I call Derek Proschutz, a friend from graduate school who practices more new-agey remedies like meditation. And hypnosis. I drive Autumn to Derek’s office – one corner of which is so crowded with incense sticks it looks like the Tunguska forest, post-explosion – and watch over the procedure.
Proschutz: She’s under now. It’s not like you see on TV, Phin. You can still talk and interact like normal, she’s just very relaxed. Very… ‘reflective’ is the appropriate word, I think. Don’t bring the energy up too much; if she gets frightened or finds something funny, we’ll have to put her under again.
Denton: Autumn, I want you to consider those plane flights-
Proschutz: I’m going to bring in some lavender essential oils to create a nice atmosphere.
Denton: Uh, sure. Good idea. Autumn, think about the flights with your dad when you were very young. Remember the clothes you wore, the games you took with you, what you wanted to watch on-
Proschutz: Phin, would you like some rooibos tea for your session?
Denton: Uh… No, man. We’re… I’m good.
Proschutz: Remember, keep the energy low. You seem like you’re getting worked up.
Collaboration is hard sometimes.
Denton: What was your father like, Autumn?
Lucan-Smith: Did you ever read The Great Gatsby?
Denton: The green light over the bay. Yes.
Lucan-Smith: Do you remember the billboard? The oculist?
Denton: Doctor T. J. Eckleburg.
Lucan-Smith: I knew I liked you for a reason. Yeah, him. The description of the billboard always reminded me of my father. Good old Guy Lucan. He was bald with two intelligent, judgmental eyes behind round wire frames.
Denton: The two of you didn’t get along?
Lucan-Smith: We did when I was young. I think he joked around a lot more back then. Or maybe I just didn’t know what normal human behavior was like and I felt comfortable around him because he was my dad. When I got older, though, nothing was good enough for him. My math grades weren’t high enough, I didn’t run fast enough in track. He wanted me to go into anthropology because the “real mysteries of humanity lay there.” To almost everyone else, physics is the hard science and anthro the soft. To Guy Lucan, it was the opposite. And his taste in friends ran contrary to typical common sense, too. Anyone you saw on the street or tucked away in, like, a strange voodoo shop that you might think looked creepy, or molester-ish, or unibomber-esque, they were my dad’s best buds. And not just weirdos, but criminals. Dangerous people. He’s dead now, and I’m sure that’s why.
Is this falling out with her father the real story here? Did that sour her to flying and magnify every negative aspect about it? If so, could that even help in rehabilitating her?
Denton: Think about the last time you had fun on a trip with him. Where were you going?
Lucan-Smith: We… I think we were coming back from Mexico. I remember him teaching me how to say “Jalisco”. So I guess we were in Guadalajara. That makes sense because I remember seeing a picture of Felix Gallardo, the leader of the fucking Guadalajara Cartel, on America’s Most Wanted or something and feeling like I knew him. “Mom,” I said, “that’s Don Felix, dad’s friend!” She turned the TV off. I think she already knew, though. They were separated about 6 months after that.
Lucan-Smith: Anyway, we had just met with Don Felix. He and my dad drank tequila from the bottle with the worm and joked through the night. Then Don Felix waved over two jacked dudes who set a big army duffel bag on the table. My dad unzipped it to find dozens of carved figurines. You know those Olmec heads? Small versions of those, some freaky-faced suns, Mayan 2012 death calendars, these striated ovals that looked like they were made out of obsidian. They made me feel bad when I looked at them, like I had walked in on someone changing. My dad’s pilot brought a case of money to the table and then there was more drinking and laughing.
Denton: Then you went to the plane?
Lucan-Smith: Yeah, then we got back in the plane and took off from a dirt strip in a cotton field. It was bumpy. Then…
Autumn is quiet for a long time. I don’t want to interrupt her thought process but I begin to wonder if she’s fallen asleep again.
Lucan-Smith: Lightning! There’s lightning but I can see stars. The plane starts to shake. I get out of my seat and lay on the floor on top of one of dad’s bags. I have my cheek pushed against the blue notebook he tapped against his thigh when he was on the phone. It smells like – ugh – mildew and wet dirt. Or creosote mixed with rotting fruit?
Lucan-Smith: The pilot, he sees me. He turns around and says, “Honey, I need you to get back in your seat and buckle the belt, ok? We’ll be fine but you could fall and get a scrape on your knee. How about you come up here with me and read one of your story books?” His name was George, I think.
Lucan-Smith: I go up to the front with George and then I can see the clouds. Weird, sulfurous clouds swirling around us. They looked like cartoon pollution clouds from Captain Planet. The plane shook harder in the storm and-
Autumn goes silent again. I try to ask a question but she holds up a hand like she’s on the phone. Then she opens her eyes.
Lucan-Smith: I think I’m fully awake now. I remember what happened to George, though. He hit his head against the glass when the plane jerked. I could see a smear of blood when he slumped in his seat. My dad pulled George out of the seat and took the wheel. I know you’re supposed to call it a stick in a plane, but this one actually looked like a wheel. The storm cleared up and we landed. George was dead.
Denton: One of the vivid thoughts you pictured on the Southwest flight was people banging their heads against the door frame. I wonder if it came from this?
Lucan-Smith: The way the lightning flashed through the blood, like red cello paper… Some of the blood I imagined did flow far enough to cover the windows. Yeah; it looked just like that. I remember dreaming about this, about George, but I thought… I thought I made it up. Just a nightmare.
Proschutz: Would you like to go back under?
Lucan-Smith: No, I think I want to go back to my hotel room. I don’t feel very well.
I drove Autumn back to the Circus Circus. It was a quiet ride, Autumn’s eyes stared out the windshield, unfocused and unseeing. Presumably, she was reliving her childhood memories.
The next morning, I had missed a call from Autumn. Her husband and son were flying back from Florida to their new home in Oregon. It was the first time any of them would actually see the house – they had moved to accommodate Autumn’s new job at OSU – and she wanted to be there with them. She did say there was a silver lining to being stranded in Las Vegas; she didn’t have to go on her son’s first airplane ride with him where he could pick up all her anxieties and phobias. I had to agree.
Autumn wanted to try implosion therapy and recreate the conditions of that last flight she took with her father. I had mentioned in our second session that I knew a Cessna pilot who helped me treat fear of flying. When I told her I would have to ask about the pilot’s schedule, Autumn told me money was no object; if the pilot could be free today with a five thousand dollar bonus, that was best. I didn’t peg Autumn as someone with a lot of extra money, so I knew her desire to see her family was strong. She wanted to conquer her fears so she could go home. It was brave and noble. I told her I’d see what I could do.
As luck would have it, Elisa Maldonado was free. She had been fine tuning her plane’s engine – a task she seemed to be in the middle of every time I called her – and stopped for a quick breakfast at the airport café. We had a delay of about an hour while Elisa filed our flight manifest, but we were in the air before lunch.
Lucan-Smith: You know, I remembered some weird things but I think playing with my Teddy Ruxpin while my dad partied with a drug kingpin is probably the weirdest one. Maybe not the most mentally scarring. But definitely weird.
Denton: Maybe your dad was more Meyer Wolfsheim than T. J. Eckleburg?
Autumn laughs and leans back in her seat. We’re ascending through minor turbulence and she doesn’t seem phased. I’m proud of her but also astounded. From psychosis to complete serenity after one hypnotherapy treatment? If anything, Autumn seemed impatient.
Maldonado: Phineas, get up here.
Denton: Something wrong?
Maldonado: Look at that shit. Fucking thunderstorm erupted out of nothing as soon as we hit 7,000 feet. Looks like it’s blowing right toward us.
Denton: Can we go around it or land?
Maldonado: I’m going to try to go around it. Landing might be hard because it’s a congested time. Especially with that bitch of a storm rolling in.
Denton: Autumn, I have some bad news. There’s a storm heading our way.
Lucan-Smith: I know. Very yellow, right? Cartoon pollution?
I looked out the cockpit window again. She was right.
Denton: Yes.
Lucan-Smith: Look, Dr. Denton, I think I should come clean about yesterday. When I said my dad partying with Don Felix was the weirdest thing I remembered, you didn’t know that there was a lot of competition for that top spot.
Lucan-Smith: George died, yeah, but… The artifacts my dad got from the drug dealers. The ones that made me feel weird, the black eggs? They started shaking before the plane. Before the lightning. Obviously I was too young to make a connection at the time, but I think they were calling to something. It’s simple physics; the more altitude you give a transmitter, the farther it can reach. There are fewer obstacles in the way to impede the signal.
Lucan-Smith: That’s what happened with those eggs. And the feeling changed. At the villa, I felt like I was watching it. As the plane shook, I felt like they were watching me. And what they were thinking… it wasn’t good.
Maldonado: What the fuck did you get me into, Phineas? I’ve never seen a storm move like this. It’s like it’s got goddamn fingers reaching out at us!
Lucan-Smith: When my dad realized what was happening, he had me lay down on the bag of trinkets to keep them still. He pulled out a little walkie-talkie and started screaming into it. “Camelot! Camelot! Come in, damn you! I have Items 26 and 27 but we’re under attack. I think it might be some kind of sonic weapon. Was there any chatter stateside about my mission? Camelot?” It was like he was playing soldier.
Denton: Autumn, why didn’t you tell me this? Was he part of a DEA operation or something?
The turbulence in our own plane was considerable. The midday light that had been streaming through the windows had faded to a sickly mustard color and I could hear Elisa cursing as she fought with the controls in the cockpit.
Lucan-Smith: I didn’t go to the cockpit with George to read then; he was too busy fighting to keep the plane stable. I stayed in the back with Dad, who told me to put the black eggs in my dress pockets. When the yellow clouds swirling around our plane started to seep in under the doors and seams in the bolted hull, I was right there laying on top of the army duffel bag. The fog streamed past my face – fast enough to sound like a Coke can opening in slow motion – and coalesced into a misty, malformed body, like a hologram projected onto dry ice smoke.
Lucan-Smith: It touched my father’s hand, almost like a handshake, and he writhed in pain. When he finally extricated himself from it, his hand dripped with blood. The nails were gone. And then it spoke.
Lucan-Smith: “Guy Lucan. You owe me life. You took my body from me and now,” the cloud raised one tendril that was polka-dotted with gory fingernails, “I take yours.”
Lucan-Smith: My dad looked in my direction. “Go, Autumn. Give those to George.” I left but, behind me, I could hear him say, “I have the vessels. You need them to walk the earth again. Isn’t that right, Safir? Kill me and you get nothing.”
Lucan-Smith: “Where?” it asked.
Lucan-Smith: My dad called for George to set the autopilot and join him in the back. I was crouched on the floor, peeking around the corner. George put on a brave face and puffed out his chest as he strode toward whatever cotton candy demon he was going to face down with my father. My father put a hand on George’s shoulder. One single pat. Then he threw open the airplane door and kicked George out. His head cracked against the bulkhead and blood splattered across the window. I rushed to the cockpit window to see him. I had just handed George the two black eggs and I could see one spiral out of his coat pocket as he fell, shrinking into the yellow void. The mist itself chased down after George, save for the ghoul wearing my father’s hastily removed fingernails. “This will be the last time you trick me, Lucan,” it said. “I will have Lucan blood. I will wear Lucan flesh. If not yours, then someone you love. Your bloodline will end, Guy Lucan.”
Lucan-Smith: “You’d better not let the vessels fall so low you can’t catch them,” was all my father said in return. He flew the rest of the way back, talking on his radio and reading out of the blue book that stank like a grave.
Denton: Autumn, I think this might be your psychosis manifesting itself again. We’re in a plane, it’s a stressful event, you’re distracting yourself from real life.
Lucan-Smith: No, Dr. Denton, I’m not. Something happened on that Southwest flight. I heard a voice, something whispering ‘Safir’ to me. It was important. It felt like something was coming and… and all I could see were plane crashes clouding the inside of my brain. I think it was a message. Safir is back and he’s going to follow through on his threat. Lucan blood will be spilled.
I shook my head and stood up. Maybe I was wrong about Autumn. Maybe she wasn’t a mentally healthy woman with a severe phobia capable of producing psychoses. Maybe the psychoses and the phobia were driven by some deeper, insidious disorder I had missed.
Lucan-Smith: And my son goes on his first flight today. In two and a half hours. He and I are the only Lucans left. If I didn’t convince you to get me up here, Safir would be coming for him. But, instead, he’s here.
As she says this, Autumn points at the seam of the Cessna door where thick yellow smoke pours into the cabin.
Lucan-Smith: You helped me realize what was actually going on. Thank you.
Golden strands of cloudy haze wrapped themselves around Autumn’s torso, enveloping her.
Lucan-Smith: Hey, now you’re Nick. You’re the outsider who gets to peek in. See you ‘round, Old Sport.
Autumn was entirely obscured from my sight, then the mist filled the cabin entirely. It was so dense I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. Then, as if a switch flipped, it was gone. The sky outside the plane was clear and there was no turbulence.
Maldonado: What in the actual shit was that? Phineas, how long do you think we've been up here?
Denton: I don’t… Autumn?
Maldonado: Feels like about a half hour to me. Maybe forty-five minutes. Right, Phineas?
Denton: Yeah. I'd say so. Autumn, where are you? Did you fall out of your seat?
Maldonado: All my clocks show we've been up here two hours. Two hours! But we've still got a full tank of gas. How does that happen?
Denton: Interesting. Autumn? Elisa, where the hell is Autumn?
Maldonado: Your patient is gone? Did- Holy shit, did she fall out? What the fuck?
When Elisa and I finally landed, Elisa’s Cessna was seized for a ‘quarantine watch’. Whatever that is. I don’t know how they knew where to find us, or how they even knew they should. ‘They’ didn’t even tell us who they were. I didn’t report Autumn missing until we were on the ground and the police didn’t know anything about it. So whoever showed up in black SUVs certainly was not LVPD.
The police questioned Elisa and me intensively, but ultimately decided we didn’t have anything to do with the disappearance. No one had fallen onto the Strip from eight thousand feet. Autumn just vanished.
Additional note: Several patient files are missing from my filing cabinet at the Las Vegas office. I’ve moved this file to my home office for safety. I’m probably being paranoid, but I can’t shake the feeling there’s a connection between the missing files and the seizure of Elisa’s plane.

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Artist: Arctic Monkeys Album: Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino Released: May 11th, 2018 Listen: Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube

THE LUNAR SURFACE (Where It All Started)

The year is 2016, Alex Turner has returned home from 30th birthday celebrations to discover a brand-new Steinway Vetregrand piano. It was a gift from his manager, and it opened a whole new world for him. “Looking back now it seems really... significant. It changed everything really.” He states about it within an interview from Mojo Magazine. He was correct. The piano sparked everything to life becoming the “centre of the universe” for the album. Guitars were just not giving him ideas anymore, but the piano was. Stored in a spare bedroom within his LA home, this became “The Lunar Surface” his almost makeshift recording studio. The name coming from the theory that Stanley Kubrick faked the moon landing. Alex even stating to Radio X that, “It was amusing to say, “I’m going down to the Lunar Surface.”” The makeshift studio also helped shape the album title, it was “instrumental” to the process. But the piano wasn’t the only thing within the makeshift studio. There was a drum kit, a Vox Continental organ, and a Tascam 388 eight-track recorder. The eight-track recorder would serve as a substantial part in making the album. “I sat with all my instruments and recorded the songs into the machine. That way, I could hear everything at once, whereas in the past it was all in my imagination until I could play the songs with the band.” He also considered it “a writing tool” as much as a recording tool. Working in isolation, he recorded tapes that would later remain on the record in forms of elements such as vocals and various instrumental parts. The eight-track even served as part of the album cover with the “lobby model” of the Hotel + Casino sitting overtop of it, with an earlier version of the record as the tape on it. The model itself was constructed by Turner. The model itself was birthed from the album title and the fact that this is the 6th Arctic Monkeys album. Thus, explaining the hexagon imagery, 1 side per album. The model first started as cardboard, left over scraps from this model can be seen in a photo from inside the Lunar Surface shot by Zackery Michael. Then it was built more and more until we arrived at the model showcased on the album’s cover. The model has a rotating sign bit that was inspired by the House of Pies rotating sign.

VOX, LA FRETTE, & BRINGING IT TOGETHER (Enter the Others)

Upon assembling some of the track, Alex took them to fellow bandmate, guitarist Jamie Cook. Jamie is considered the “gatekeeper” to band, almost like the human bullshit meter. Alex almost feared that he would underwhelmed with it. But Jamie was the one told Alex, “This is definitely what we should be doing.” This led to the pair adding guitar parts to the songs. The majority of these, like the demo tape vocals, stuck with the album. From here they took the album to Vox Recording Studios on Melrose Ave. in LA, in May 2017. This is where the first full band sessions were recorded. Some of the “more interesting” keyboard sounds within the album came from these sessions. But this did not really work out for the band. So, later in September, the band went to La Frette Studios, a residential recording studio on the outskirts of Paris. This was where the album really came together. The band spent about 5-6 weeks recording here. This was Jamie’s idea. La Frette ended up seeing the band bring in an extra 9 musicians to play with them. This also led to a ‘Pet Sounds’ style of recording. This was a large ensemble recording style with these multiple musicians and the band themselves on multiple different instruments including multiple of the same type. So, 2 drum kits, 3 guitars, a couple of pianos. This did not work for every track but did work for a few. (Specifically, The Ultracheese, but I will talk about this more later) Alex stated to BBC Radio 1 that, “A lot of the energy I feel like came from that session. It was all like together in La Frette.” Some of the La Frette sessions can be seen in the Warp Speed Chic short film shot by Ben Chappell.

THE ALBUM (Natural Progression and Influences)

The album overall is 11 tracks. Many believe that the album is a concept album revolving around the Hotel + Casino, but that is not the case. Each one is a “short story” in the words of Turner. Four Out Of Five and the title tracking being the most connected of the collection. "But in other ways it does seem like a collection of short stories and we named the collection after one of the stories which is this one [Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino]. The other ones belong in the same place as this." (Radio X Track by Track interview). The title of the album itself came from a variety of things. The two most prominent being: the fact it is a “place”, and the location of the Apollo 11 moon landing. One thing should be known about the idea of the hotel and casino being a place, Turner loves to think of albums of places. “I think of some of my favorite records as places that you can go and stay for a while, and sort of spurred me on to give this record the name of a place.” (iHeart) The other part of the name itself coming from the Apollo 11 landing may be considered more interesting. This is due to the fact it may have come from cups themed with the lunar landing. The title of course is not the only interesting thing about the album. The sound itself is a departure from their last, AM. But the band all feel like this was natural progression. But the AM era was where they felt they had went a little too far. Bassist Nick O’Malley told Mojo Magazine that he felt that they had lost the “realness” in a sense with that era. “I think we'd gone as far as we could go. I had these crazy ‘80s hair metal leggings on-stag. I'd worn ‘em on Halloween, which I'd done dressed as Macho Man Randy Savage, the WWF wrestler. That was a big sign that it was time to have a break.” And with that they took a break, a five year long one. Turner himself was also aware that he could not do what he did on AM again, “I was aware of the idea that, I don’t think I could have been singing about the things I was singing about on AM anymore.” (Studio Brussels) This was not the first time the band has faced this “challenge” of switching it up. The same thing had happened with their 3rd album Humbug. Drummer Matt Helders states, “We’ve had that challenge before, after the first album success where we had to just get on and make the second, or else forever be dwelling on it. But this one didn’t feel like that. I mean, maybe there’ll be fans we gained from AM that will be a bit confused now. Like, that was their first experience of the band... ‘and now they’re going this?’” (Mojo Magazine) But the band did not want to make AM 2.0. Guitarist Jamie Cook stated to Mojo Magazine, “If we were worried about that we would never have made Humbug. And to disappear for a couple of years then come back with AM2? I think people have been, ‘Fuck off.’” But of course, this move was not met without criticism. Many fans and critics found themselves in a state of “What the fuck happened to Arctic Monkeys?” upon their new era and album due to the departure of sound from AM. But Turner himself does not see this a full-fledged departure, “There’s an idea that this album’s radically removed from where we’ve been. I can sort of see that, but I don’t think it’s as much of a move as people suggest.” (LA Times)
The album takes multiple film influences, science fiction influences, and musical influences from film scores to help make these “short stories”. Science Fiction inspired Turner to explore other worlds to create the album. Worlds he made up as he went along. Three films from Jean-Pierre Melville served as main influences on the album. The films being Un Flic, Le Cercle Rouge, and Le Samouraï. The films mostly center around a jazz club. The set interiors of these films piqued Turner’s interest. “So, when I would sit at the piano and play these types of chords, I was thinking about those Melville interiors a lot.” (Pitchfork) Overall, the sci-fi influenced led to Turner accessing sort of a “vocabulary” to say, that helped paint this picture of this hotel and casino on the moon.
The album also has this “magic” that they just could not get upon other recording sessions. This led to many of the demo tapes and early session elements making it to the file cut. They wanted to make an intimate experience but just could not get it to be as intimate as some of the early recording.
The album itself is also “autobiographical” in a sense. Turner sees it as him talking to himself all throughout the 11 tracks. But this wasn’t his first time trying to write things towards himself. “I tried to write this kind of thing before, I just didn’t know how to, really. I think I tried and recognized, thankfully, that I wasn’t ready. It's like the natural place to have gone, after that first record, was somewhere around ‘ere.”

THE TRACKS

STAR TREATMENT
Opening the album, we have Star Treatment, an almost 6-minute-long track. The track itself beings with the line “I just wanted to be one of The Strokes.” A polarizing opening line for a polarizing album. This lyric was originally meant to be replaced, but Turner kept it in. He was using the “Scrambled Eggs” method for the album. The “Scrambled Eggs” method comes from Paul McCartney where he used “scrambled eggs” as temporary lyrics while writing The Beatles’ song ‘Yesterday’. This just happened to be one of those lines. But he took a liking to it the more time went on. The Strokes of course were a big influence on the band, they were even coined “The British Strokes” upon debut. But truth is, time has passed since then. About 12 years to be exact. “But when I circled back around to it I felt like it was right where it ought to be because of how it makes me think, “Shit. The last 12 years just flashed by.” There’s an honesty and a truth to it.” (Pitchfork) The passage of time is a constant theme within this track, with references to the ‘70s, the ‘80s. This track was the first thing Turner had written for the album. It came about during the last run of The Last Shadow Puppets (Turner’s side-project with Miles Kane). But this is also the most direct Turner was with himself on the album. Specifically, about songwriting. Lines like “The golden boy’s in bad shape,” refer to the fact he was lost with his songwriting and did not know where to go. But like how the track had started before the album itself had started, there’s a particular line that had existed since 2009. “Here ain’t no place for dolls like you and me,” That was the line. He had tried giving it away to others to put in a track, but no one would take it. So, he saved it because he didn’t have “follow up” per say yet but found it within this track. Another focal point for the track is the lounge singer and his backing band. This lounge singer theme can be seen through, but this is where it starts. This is where the lounge singer gets the name for his band. “I think I like the idea that there would be a longue singer sat at a bar, overhearing somebody being cut off from having another martini and hearing them say “Who are you to cut me off? The martini police?” and then this lounge singer thinking “That would be a good name for my backing band.”” (Radio X) But this track serving as the opening track overall sets a tone for the album. Upon sharing the music with others, they decided this would be the best place to start the album, a way to get people to hear it first and foremost. The other way to do this would have been releasing it as a single. But they took what can be seen a controversial move in this era of streaming and singles being more prominent than albums to release no singles. Like how this track led to Turner writing the rest of the album, it leads you, the listener, into the rest of the album.
ONE POINT PERSPECTIVE
One Point Perspective is the shortest track on the album, but it does pack quite a bit of a punch. With the title coming from a filming style, specifically one used a lot by Stanley Kubrick, a main influence on the album, we dig a bit more into the sci-fi roots. The track itself focuses on conversations, dreams, and how they are often interrupted. “It was informed perhaps by conversations I may have heard or been involved with. Under the influence of some narcotic draft or another. And fragments of those things are appearing the lyrics on this tune.” (Radio X) The track also focuses briefly on a made-up documentary called “Singsong ‘Round the Money Tree”. “I think specifically in the case of this documentary, there was something else there. And it came from the “If I’m gonna end up singing to a quiet room, like what comes before that.” Perhaps someone had told me they’d been singing along to a score or something.” (Radio X) Of course this brings us to the quiet rooms. What exactly are the quiet rooms? Well they’re exactly what they sound like, literal quiet rooms. But they also refer to isolation experienced by Turner while recording the album. With the vocal takes, especially the early tape ones, it would just be him, alone in the Lunar Surface with his eight-track. Of course, there’s also the line “Bear with me, man, I lost my train of thought.” This one is followed by a pause in the vocals and is usually played up for the live shows, but it represents that spot in a conversation where you really do lose your train of thought. Maybe it’s your mind wandering, maybe it’s that you are being interrupted and then trying to resume what you were talking about but forgot. But, it’s a universal feeling that ties together this track.
AMERICAN SPORTS
American Sports is an interesting track. Not just musically, but lyrically. Music wise an organ plays a main part in the track. The organ though was strangely organized upon recording. With Turner doing one bar, recording it, stopping, doing another bar. Eventually in later recording sessions they attempted to play it all together but just could not get the same effect/sound as the one from the eight-track tape, so they stuck with that. The vocals were also from the eight-track tape. Lyrical wise the track was pulled together by a line given to Turner from his grandfather. “I visited me Granddad one day and he said to me, ‘You know, I often think of phrases even there that I think you might be able to do something with.’ And I sort of went ‘All right.’ He likes to watch the horse-racing, and he began to tell me that whenever there’s what’s called a ‘steward’s inquiry,’- All you ever hear back after the steward’s inquiry is the phrase ‘the trainer's explanation was accepted by the steward.’ Which, as he said it I just thought was loaded.” (iHeart) This was what sparked the rest of the track. But there’s one question left, what the fuck is Lola? Well, a Lola is his writer’s block. Seen within the chorus with the line “And I never thought, not in a million years, that I’d meet so many Lolas.” He gives the writer’s block a bit of a personification. The track also gives us more callbacks to technology, another overlapping theme within the album. The narrator describes a video call with God, and a virtual reality mask stuck on ‘Parliament Brawl’. The parliament brawl also allows this track to get a little political. This can be seen heavily within the first line of the second verse, “Breaking news, they take the truth and make it fluid,” mostly referring to the phenomena of ‘Fake News’. Overall, the track makes for an interesting take combining writer’s block, political problems, and technology.
TRANQUILITY BASE HOTEL + CASINO
The title track serves as the fourth track to the album. Opening with imagery of Jesus in a day spa. But the track itself is built upon the idea of the character Mark. Mark of course is a character in the track who answers phones, mostly stating the name of the hotel and casino while asking where he can direct your call. First Turner pictured Mark at this phone, then he pictured where the phone was after that. This led of course to the album title, but it also leads back into the track itself. This of course is played off well in the video, but we’ll get to that in a bit. As the track builds you a bit more of this world of the hotel and casino on the moon, it also leads to some interesting lines. One in particular being “Kiss me underneath the moon’s sideboob.” Question of the year being, what the fuck is the moon’s sideboob? Well, the term was coined by guitarist Jamie Cook. “There was a really thin crescent moon in the sky, which Jamie from the band described as the moon's sideboob and I thought that was like quite profound.” (Studio Brussel) Another odd line within the track is “Technological advances really bloody get me in the mood”, this is a bit of a satire. But is also a slight observation. This observation being that technology sometimes changes society, especially when advances are made. These changes can be reflected in the way we talk to others, the way we act, and many other aspects of our life that we may not fully realize at first. For the record though, technological advances do not turn him on.
Onto the video, this was the second single from the album, and the second video. The video was released on the 23rd of July. Directed by Ben Chappell and Aaron Brown, the video continues an overlapping Kubrick inspired theme. Unfortunately, Turner is the only one from the band who fully makes an appearance in the video. The others are briefly shown through footage from their BCC Maida Vale Studios session appearing on displays though out the “sets”. Throughout this video there’s sections where the track and video break a bit for some flashing red lights followed by some “doots” taking over the audio, like the Four Out of Five video. The video was filmed at the Peppermill Reno, a hotel and casino within Las Vegas, Nevada. The Peppermill Reno were nice enough to write a blog post about the video breaking down the locations of the video. The video took two days of film to shoot within the area. The first location they filmed at was the Fireside Longue. This is the first time Turner, playing out the character of Mark, is handed a phone. The phone was handed to him by a worker from the Café Milano within the hotel and casino. Two different suites are featured throughout the video. The first being the Safari Adventure Suite. This is home to many of the hot tub scenes. The other being the Roman Opulence suite, this was the all gold room. There’s also the elevator shots that came from the 17th floor elevators. The wandering around the hotel and casino shots, mostly shot within the cube bar and the island buffet. And some phone call answering with the Tuscany Tower’s courtesy phone. There’s one other particular phone scene within this video I decided to save for last due the fact that it is going to come up a bit later. The second phone call is answered within a replica of the 1966 Batmobile via the Batphone. This serves as a nice callback to one of the later tracks on the album titled, Batphone. During these shots he also is fake driving with a projected image of a tunnel in the background, this also comes up in the Four Out of Five video, but we’ll get into that on that track.
GOLDEN TRUNKS
Believe it or not this the “love song” on the album. Yeah. The track is described by Turner as being a conversation between him and an unnamed female character he is falling for. But that all gets overshadowed by the semi-titular line, “The leader of the free world, reminds you of a wrestler wearing tight golden trunks.” The line does steal the show for being out there in a sense. The beginning of the line is a bit cumbersome to say the least, but it is almost melodic in another sense via the delivery. But this overall is just another part of the conversation with this female character. It may even be part of her imagination, you know, something she’s saying. Almost giving us a retrospective into her thoughts, feelings, and sense of humor. This all leads towards the bridge of the track. “Bendable figures with a fresh new pack of lies, Summat else to publicise, I'm sure you've heard about enough.” Almost showing us how fast the conversation is moving along. But also showing that you get to a point where you don’t know what to believe in the conversation or really what to believe in the track. The bridge also brings another interesting point forward. The words in particular, ‘Bendable Figures’ was almost the track’s title. “Which was because, someone got me a toy Batmobile, and it came with bendable figures of Batman and Robin, I assume, among others possibly. I’ve made a bit of a name for me since, and I mean, I am a fan of the old Batman book. I remember looking at this box and on the box it said ‘bendable figures’ and I don’t know. The news might have been on in the background, and here we are.” (iHeart) Another interesting point of the track is how straight the narrator and this female character are with each other. They both are basically telling each other that they fantasize about each other. She says it by whispering in his ear, he says it by responding to her straightly.
FOUR OUT OF FIVE
Another track with an interesting open, this one was originally different lyric-wise. Originally the words were ‘Karaoke and raspberry beret, in imaginative ways, and I get signed right then and there by a hotshot executive / I wasn’t expecting it that easy.’ Quite a departure from the final version that appears on the track. Four Out of Five served as the first single to the album. The track describes a taqueria on the roof the Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino, and more particularly how it is boasting four stars out of five. Mostly just how perfect scores are unattainable so a four of five is great enough, “Because the people that are in charge of giving the scores, they never give a perfect hundred.” (Beats 1) The taqueria itself is named “The Information-Action Ratio” this comes from Neil Postman's book ‘Amusing Ourselves to Death’. “I was attracted to the idea as soon as I heard that phrase; even though it was in this book from [1985] it still seemed relevant—more relevant than it probably was when the guy made it up.” (Pitchfork) The phrase itself explains that we don’t need the vast amount of information we receive and that we don’t do much about this information. But it’s a great name for a taqueria on the roof of a hotel and casino on the moon. The track itself also gives us more of the story about the hotel itself. Mostly its location, other than the moon itself. We learn that the entire moon is getting gentrified due to an exodus. There’s also a really cool play musically where the last chorus literally is lifted up another semitone after it’s said at the end of the bridge.
Onto the video for this one, the Kubrick fantasy filming begins here. Directed by Ben Chappell and Aaron Brown, the video was released on the 13th of May. The video was filmed at the Castle Howard in Yorkshire and the Munich Marienplatz station in Munich, Germany. The video starts with Turner playing a piano but then stopping to go look at the model of the hotel and casino. Throughout this video there’s sections where the track and video break a bit for some flashing red lights followed by some “doots” taking over the audio. Then, the video sees Turner taking the role of a director for some “Video Lifestyle Packages” for the hotel and casino. But it also gives us two different Turners. One with a beard, one without. The two doing seemingly parallel tasks within different areas. The other band members are also seen within the video, mostly jamming out. Especially with the nice little jam session with beardless Turner in the end. Due to the fact there’s two seemingly different Turners this has led to fan theories surrounding the video. Some stating that maybe the hotel and casino is some cover up for a mental hospital, another stating that maybe it’s both sides of his life (regulaprofessional). Assistants are also seen throughout the video setting up sets and other things, almost as if this was a film set. There’s also one scene in particular I’d like to touch on, the car scenes. This one is a bit important because it almost calls back the “haunt you via the rear-view mirror” line from Star Treatment. This scene was originally intended to be used in a video for Star Treatment, but they used it here instead. Overall, the video a bit of a visual treat with its cues from Stanley Kubrick and was more than a fitting visual return for Arctic Monkeys going into this era.
THE WORLD’S FIRST EVER MONSTER TRUCK FRONT FLIP
Yeah that’s a title to get your attention. The title comes from the actual event of the world’s first ever monster truck front flip. This was something that had caught Turner’s interest and will probably catch yours too upon just reading it. Sure, he may have only watched the video once, but the headline itself was what caught his attention. Later on, he used it create the base for what he was imagining with the track. “I think I imagined a sort of old presidents’ men style news room with just enough men in there. And sorta trying to get the editors attention like “You'll never believe it, somebody's done it forwards” and I think going off in my mind, perhaps and I thought, I don't know... It seems like that's where were at now innit, that sort of things are happening." (Radio X) The track itself lyrically describes TECHNOLOGY. More specifically, how people love their devices. “You push the button and we’ll do the rest” a repeating line that refers to how we’ve gotten so far that you can just push a button, and something will happen. Whether it be something within an app or data storage. Data storage is another important theme within the track. Our data is being stored everywhere. The track uses the data storage as a metaphor in many ways, with things like someone trying to breach into it. But overall the track itself just shows us how technology is changing us, references to technology changing us lie throughout. But we also see a bit of a jab at how no one wants to explain what the technology is exactly doing, “There are things that I just cannot explain to you, and those that I hope I don’t ever have to.” This wraps everything back around because it ties into the theme of just pushing a button and having everything done for us. We don’t see the background process, we don’t know what exactly they do, we just know that we can push a button and it will be done.
SCIENCE FICTION
True to the title, the track explores the themes of Science Fiction. Science Fiction is the “lobby model” of the album, as in it brings it all together. The track started with the idea of exploring Sci-Fi further and exploring worlds created from this, same with the album. One of the things in particular that sparked this was the Fassbinder film ‘World on a Wire’. Sci-Fi takes these themes and attempts to connect them to the real world and even Tranquility Base. Continuing the overarching theme of technology, this one takes the focus on how we’re viewing society due to technology, again. Making light touches on religion, we can see how in this “area” per say, science has won. But we also see how it feels like Sci-Fi is taking over in the form of a reality that feels strange and almost fictional at points. Technology keeps becoming a bigger part of our lives to the point where it almost disconnects us in a way. The narrator in this track wants to avoid that, he wants to stay within the life of his love. But it’s hard with things changing so much and society also changing. He states that he wants to make a “simple point” about peace and love but not too obviously. And this track almost feels like that point. But then it takes a bit of a turn at the end. We see the narrator take this back a bit and Turner begin to doubt if he’s wandering on too much with the track itself. “So, I tried to write a song to make you blush. But I’ve a feeling that the whole thing, may well just end up too clever for its own good.” Describing it as too clever shows that he feels like he’s overthinking it all. With a track with an almost double meaning like this it is a bit easy to understand why it may be “too clever”.
SHE LOOKS LIKE FUN
Ah yes, the rock and roll song of the record. Or well, the rock and roll without the roll. IT’S ALL ROCK MUSIC TO ALEX TURNER DAMMIT. This track has been described as frenzy but controlled. The structure of the track itself reflects that, “It goes like 3 verses in this tune before anything else changes. And I think like by that third one you get this sense of like you shouldn't be doing it again, it's time to move somewhere else. And eventually it does happen.” (Radio X) The main idea for this track came from the fact we almost create these “characters” within the virtual world. You know, your online presence through social media. The title itself is refrained throughout the track as the chorus and refers to how we just look a photo and decide what people are like. In this case the female titular character of the track is described to look like “fun”. Furthermore, this is joined but what may seem to be a non-sensical string of words. But, it’s meant to represent scrolling through a social feed like Instagram. “As far as the “cheeseburger” line, I was actually watching an episode of the show “High Maintenance,” and there’s a part where the person’s taking their picture with a cheeseburger and posting it and all this.” (Pitchfork) The verses focus more on the internet culture and the behavior of those within. Whether this behavior be something like a VR experience of New Year’s Eve at Bruce Wayne’s Manor or being a dickhead to someone. It’s about how we can almost do whatever we want with almost no restrictions in this virtual landscape. The bridge brings it to a point where we realize, it almost feels like everything is online nowadays. This follows by some lines of Turner criticizing himself for constantly talking about marital arts to people in bars. This mostly draws from Turner’s frequent kickboxing sessions. “Maybe sometimes I put stuff into a song to stop myself from doing it - I think I’m just realising that’s true. Like there’s a line in the middle of She Looks Like Fun about waffling on to strangers about martial arts in bars, and that was definitely something I was doing a lot of and was aware I needed to stop doing.” (Mojo Magazine) Also this marks the second time within the album where he says something regarding the music and it happens. This time being in the form of a key change. The last chorus features a key change that is in time with him stating it in the track.
BATPHONE
The all mighty Batman comes into a focus theme upon this track! Okay... Barely. A “Batphone” in the sense of this track is a direct line to Turner via his phone. The track deals with analysis and criticism of technology all at once. Opening on Turner realizing that he can just use a search engine to find a more interesting word to describe what he’s trying to say. Which, it wasn’t always like this, there was a time where you’d have to go through whole thesauruses to find this interesting words or phrases. Now they’re just a click/tap/touch away. Moving along we see that the narrator in the track specifically is of high class, stating that there’s much to discuss over a game of golf. Of course, that is phrased better within the track itself but for simplicities sake I’m just going to leave it at that. Then he gets into the fact life is a “spectator sport”. Through social media we sit and watch other people’s lives unfold like watching a sport almost. Then we get to a line that may seem more polarizing that it is. “I launch my fragrance called ‘Integrity’ I sell the fact that I can’t be bought.” Upon hearing this line for the first time you may think “What the fuck kind of pretentious bullshit is this trying to be?” Well, that’s exactly where you’re wrong. The idea of a fragrance called ‘Integrity’ is literally just that. “With something like that, I can’t sit here and tell you I wanted to make some comment about integrity and my relationship to it, and then make a fucking perfume out of it and write a smart-ass line like that. It’s more like I see the shape of the letters of “integrity” on the perfume bottle in my mind’s eye—once you know what that font looks like, then it writes itself after that.” (Pitchfork) Yeah, the line came from the visualization of perfume literally called ‘Integrity’. (Which, hilariously, there is one now called that.) Back to the lyrics, we see Turner talk about how he got “sucked into a hole” through a handheld device, this means his phone. Of course, we do all get a bit sucked into our phones now and again. It happens. And now it’s easier than ever. This being due to things like updates to make it easier to access things. The glow of the low beams within this track may be the car lights of your lover. But we do know that he will be by the Batphone if you need to get a hold of him at all. With our phones so close to us at all times, it’s almost like we all have personal Batphones. Then we get into how phones have changed over time. Coining them as “re-decorated” with new lights and sidebars upon them changing. Back the chorus again we see Turner sitting in his living room, with blinds closed, watching the lights of cars going by, but knowing that he'd know those of the car of his lover. Ending upon the panoramic windows again. These are said to be “looking out across your soul”, this is simply just our phone screens. They’re glass, windows are glass. But we look and see things on display including our souls, you know, our lives. Thus, making your soul being put on display through these “windows”. Sure, it’s not just your own soul, there are other people in this world, but it’s important you know that it is yours first and foremost on display. Always remember, whatever you put online, others will see.
THE ULTRACHEESE
Our closing track is a something that could be called Turner’s “Default Position” at this rate. But that does not mean it’s a bad thing. This track in particular is one where we see the Pet Sounds influenced recording style come to life, with multiple drum kits, multiple guitars, and pianos within the recording. The track sees Turner reflect on his past and how things have changed overtime. The title comes from the fact that the track may be a bit too “Cheesy” for everyone except himself. Songwriting of course has changed over time the most for him, upon talking about old tracks he stated, “It feels like we’re doing a cover or something when we play the first album, really, but that’s fine. I don’t hate doing that. It’s just come to the point where I play ‘Mardy Bum’ or something like that and it doesn’t even feel like mine anymore.” (BeatRoute) He feels disconnected from his old lyrics, which is sad but true statement. Of course, this track also touches quickly upon the themes of technology and politics throughout the track. But overall, it’s more just a personal reflection upon everything. Turner even describes himself as not being deep in thought, even if it looks like he was. He’s just living his life, good or bad, it’s just how everything is going down. The track ends the album on the line “I’ve done some things that I shouldn’t have done, but I haven’t stopped loving you once.” We all have things we regret in our lives. Sometimes that shit gets us out of nowhere and ends up on our minds. But we also see Turner telling his lover that he just loves them throughout it. Throughout all the good, the bad, the dirty bullshit, he still loves them.

THE B-SIDE (Anyways)

Yeah I was not finishing this without talking about the B-Side that was released with the title track on the 7” single. The B-side is titled ‘Anyways’ and was cut from the album. “I had a song that didn’t make this record with lyrics that mentioned both Bing Crosby and Randy Newman. And I just thought, You can’t do that. You can have one or the other. Just fucking calm down! You don’t want to make a song too lumpy.” (Vulture) Anyways here means the topic of a conversation and trying to change it. The narrator keeps trying to change the conversation. This can be seen throughout the track with a change in subject seemingly every few lines. One minute talking about toga parties, the next asking about if Mum and Dad are doing well. It’s just topic after topic in this “race” to Anyways. Technology appears again, with a quick mention of oversharing, something that is prevalent throughout the world of social media. Going back the Four Out of Five video from earlier we have a quick mention of a double life. This of course being the public/personal personas or home/professional personas. Much of the rest of the track just shows Turner bearing his all out there for everyone to see and making light of this. “You sort of reveal a piece of something as you’re writing and recording it. Then you find what you’re attracted to, scribble away a bit more of the dust and discover a bit more of the picture. Gradually, it becomes what it is. Each time you reveal another bit of it, it commits you to take the next step.” (BeatRoute) Some argue that this would have made a more “fitting” close for the album than The Ultracheese, other argue that it could have fit in literally anywhere on the album. Overall, I’m just glad it did get released it in the end.

REFLECTIONS IN THE SILVER SCREEN (An Outro)

I first listened to the album when it leaked. Shit on me all you want but I was just so curious. The whole no singles thing intrigued me alongside the sci-fi theme. I was looking for something different and I found it with this album. At the time did I know this was going to be my album of the year? No. Fuck, I barely knew anything about AM at the time apart from Do I Wanna Know?. I coined it as something along the lines of “What Death of A Bachelor could should been.” Turner constantly describes this album as one where he wanted to take people to a place, to this imaginary hotel and casino, and I was taken there upon first listen. I felt like I was sitting, watching a longue singer belt out tunes about his life. Of course, now on the right night I can recreate that feeling, but not always. But the album has just stuck me. Sure, many upon first hearing it found it off putting, but I loved it since first listen. If anything, this album was what made me a fan. This is what me look at AM and go “There’s something here I was missing.” Sure, it did take me months to act upon that, but I’m glad I did. Do I know where AM are going to go next? No. I don’t think any of us really do anymore. This album proved how unpredictable it is to calculate Arctic Monkeys in a way. Maybe the next record will be guitar based again, maybe not. We’ll only know when it comes, no matter how far away that is.

GOLDEN BOY’S NOT IN SUCH BAD SHAPE (Nominations)

Album:

2018 Mercury Prize Nomination
Best Alternative Music Album (Grammy Awards)

Four Of Five:

Best Rock Performance (Grammy Awards)

Going to Vegas in July - I've been doing my research so hope this can help others.

I'm going in July and have done some research.
Plenty of this is from the sidebar, but other notes are from many of other sources.
The Vegas Degenerate Tour ( . ) ( . )
Things to do:

Drugs
Hookers
Bellagio Fountains (free)
Mirage Volcano Show (free)
The lounge at the top of the Mandarin Oriental - Super Classy with amazing night time views, sexy patrons and great cocktails
Wet Republic - Rent cabana 2 months in advance
Las Vegas Helicopter Night Flight with VIP Transportation £65pp
Grand Canyon Skywalk - Apparently Expensive and not that good - you have to take a bus to get there and it is $30 each. Go to Grand Canyon south instead.
The Strip Gun Club Range
Sapphires pool party - strippers pool party!!!
Fremont Street Experience at night.
Container Park, which is a few blocks east of the Freemont St. Experience, a 2 foot recycled steel praying mantis (acquired from Burning Man) spits giant fireballs to the beat of music A LOT. Lots of half naked men and women. LOTS (free)
Ghost Bar at the Palms has amazing views. Check Groupon for deals. Happy hour 8-10pm
Stratosphere rides
Stratosphere bar at the top. Happy hour 2 hours after open
High Roller observation wheel. Get a car with the open bar.
Monte Carlo minus 5 Ice bar. Everything is made out of ice! Bar, glasses, seating - everything
RiRa Irish bar with live music and good Guinness after 9pm
The Foundation Room at Mandalay Bay, live music and amazing strip views
Strip clubs: Spearmint Rhino, Hustler Club and Crazy Horse--those are our top 3 Rhino and Horse are high end and classy
Top Golf location, just behind MGM. 5 levels of golf driving range, mixed with music, food and drinks. There are also 2 pools, free to use.#
Dig This drive diggers and bulldozers.
Spa in the ARIA is amazing with good treatments.
Alibi show http://alibitheshow.com/ This experience throws the audience into an exciting adventure around the streets, restaurants, bars and other real-life locations on the Las Vegas Strip.
BARE POOL AT MIRAGE: Go on Monday. At Bare, experience palm tree-enclosed seclusion as you relax and enjoy European-style sunbathing at Bare Pool at The Mirage. Read more https://jackcolton.com/las-vegas-dayclubs/bare-pool-mirage/
Ride in a stuntplane! Actual vomiting everywhere http://www.skycombatace.com/
Best price supercar rentals https://www.vegasluxuryrides.com
Lake Mead boat rental boatbound.com
Absinthe at Ceaser’s Palace amazing offensive comedy show http://www.ticketmaster.com/Absinthe-tickets/artist/802082
There is so much free stuff going on up and down the strip though that you can just do all the free stuff and not spend a dime. From street dancers, people singing, or pictures with a grown dude wearing a diaper.
Eclipse cinemas downtown for an over 21s only luxury cinema experience with cocktails and good food.
The Linq promenade is a very nice area
Treasures strip club: have a nice buffet and steak to go with your titty show http://www.treasureslasvegas.com/
VooDoo Zipline at Rio Groupon $44 for two
REAL BODIES at Ballys Groupon $35.50 for two

Tips:

Hotel picker https://farm1.staticflickr.com/770/21800142824_6dddea1786_k.jpg
$50 a night dining credit at ARIA somehow - research
Do the $20 checking tip trick. Slip a $20 in between card and ID and ask to see if an upgrade is possible.
Get player’s cards - sign up for the Player's Club (free) in each casino, they will usually give you some sort of incentive
Buy water at a supermarket and keep at hotel
Taxi from Airport request avoid the I-215 Airport Tunnel and go via Strip
http://www.tix4tonight.com for tickets on the night
Drinks are ALWAYS cheaper inside the casinos on Fremont than outside
Harrah's has a "Million Dollar Pull" where you just go up and play a slot machine for free with the chance to win $1 million. Even if you don't win a million, you will always win something.
If you want to go to top of the Stratosphere go to the desk to the right of the entrance and say you want to go to the bar. You won't have to pay the $15 to go to the top.
Marketing manager for the Aria https://www.reddit.com/usetedistkrieg
Have the clubs pick you up in their limos because all the cab/ubelyft/limo drivers get a kick back on anyone they drop off to the clubs and same with the VIP card guys! So if you don't use the free limo ... THE CLUB HAS TO CHARGE YOU A COVER!!! If you use the clubs FREE limo service they can sometimes wave that cover charge!! (that's like $20 a person!)
Check for Groupon deals.
Make sure you all download the Uber and Lyft app. Both offer new user signup credits. Free rides.
A $400 Pre-Authorisation charge for resort fees and ‘amenities’ was taken as expected upon check in. I would recommend UK visitors to take a Cash Passport MasterCard (available in Thomas Cook and other travel agents)

Clubs

Hosts contacts list for all major clubs: https://jackcolton.com/
You can view hotel discounts at up to 30% as well as VIP table service for nightclubs at: www.VegasJames.com for strip clubs at: www.StripperKing.com
XS Encore
Hakkasan MGM
Light inside the Mandalay Bay
Tryst Wynn
Vegas local youtuber and bouncehost Jacob Orth to hook us up with limo service to the Hustler club
Places we personally recommend from experience:
Hakkasan
Omnia
The Light
XS
XS does a nightitme pool party
Gold Spike nightclub / hotel in Downtown is a bit more ‘Hipster’
This list offers plenty more clubs to check out (many of which don’t require a cover).
http://www.vegasvip.com/nightclubs.html

Food

Alizé Tasting Menu - get groupon for discount £350 > $200
Sage in the Aria has a highly rated tasting menu
Aria buffet one of the best
Joël Robuchon in MGM is crazy silly expensive but amazing food 16 course taster $425 each without drinks https://www.mgmgrand.com/en/restaurants/joel-robuchon-french-restaurant.html
Guy Savoy at Caesars Palace a little cheaper 9 course tasting for $260/person or a $350/person 14 course tasting https://www.caesars.com/caesars-palace/restaurants/guy-savoy#.WI8vkRuLTIU
é by Jose Andres inside Jaleo inside Cosmo. Only 8 seats, reservations by email only ([email protected]) starting 3 months prior to the res date, 23 courses. $190/person(?) without alcohol pairing
Raku in Chinatown does amazing 8/12 course tastings for $70/100 a person
The tasting, or "seasonal discover menu" at L'Atelier is up to $165 per person
Eiffel Tower restaurant is a Must for dinner!!!!!!!! Fantastic view of the strip
Good steakhouses serve food at the restaurant bar and the bartender has seen some shit. So much more fun for a party up to three and the service is over the top.
Delmonico's in Venetian at the bar. The cocktails and food were amazing.
Mushashi's dirty show (Japanese steak with a naughty show for the girls.) Midnight to 4am happy hour.
Secret Pizza. A secret pizza place. Needs research! Inside the Cosmopolitan
Bachi Burger – also to reunite with a previous memory. I still think this is one of the top 3 burgers I’ve ever had. The oxtail chili cheese fries are recommended by others to be a “must”, but I personally prefer the truffle fries.
Monta Ramen – I’m a huge ramen fan and I understood this was the –best- ramen place in Vegas.
Sweets Raku – in the same complex as Monta Ramen. They have some neat desserts that they make right in front of you, lovely experience.
Wicked Spoon Buffet at the Cosmo. Everything was really good and the deserts were awesome.
Brunch @ Bacchanal Buffet, Caesar’s Palace – This was awesome! We had the groupon deal and it was impressively cheap. Midway through our meal they switched to their lunch menu so we got the best of both worlds there.
Gordon Ramsey’s Burgr – onion rings were incredible. The burger was pretty good as well.
Earl of Sandwich - I could seriously eat these every day.
Studio B Buffet @ M Resort
The "Heart Attack Grill" lets you eat free if you weigh over 350 pounds.
Marriage Can Be Murder - This is a dinner / theater / murder mystery / whodunit show at the D downtown. Includes tasty food, extreme audience participation and likely embarrassment. You may be called upon to dance, or play a character in the murder mystery. Comes with tasty food, cocktails available.
For dinner, I highly recommend BLT Steak House in Ballys Hotel and Red8 in The Wynn - if you are a food lover, BLT’s is particularly worth the extra!

Sex/Swingers Clubs (Or; no, you filthy pervert - what's wrong with you?)

The Red Rooster http://www.yelp.com/biz/las-vegas-red-rooster-las-vegas
The Green Door http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-green-door-las-vegas
Couple's Oasis http://www.couplesoasis.com/main/

Drive:
Drive along east CA down US-395 and crossing over to Nevada after Death Valley is one of the greatest drives I have ever done.
Guides:

Edited to include corrections.

Our hotel room was robbed during EDC

Let me preface this post by saying that I'm not writing this to ask for pity or attention or likes or whatever. What's done is done and the chances of us getting our stuff back is pretty slim at this point. My intent and purpose in writing this is to educate and inform others. This whole ordeal sucks and I don't wish for something like this to ever happen to anyone else.
Anyway...this year was my fourth and final EDC Las Vegas. I went with 3 other friends. We stayed at Planet Hollywood, checked in around 1PM on Thursday 6/16 and checked out 11AM Monday 6/20. Unfortunately, our room was robbed sometime during Saturday evening/Sunday morning, while we were at EDC day 2.
At first none of us even realized it. I woke up on day 3 searching for my wallet, but wasn't able to find it. Our room was very messy because let's be real, it's EDC/Vegas and no one's room is ever clean during this weekend lol. I thought it had just been misplaced at first or under a pile of clothes somewhere. I didn't bring my wallet with me outside the hotel room at any point during the weekend (I use a phone case that holds my ID/credit card so I left my wallet in the room at all times). I know for a fact I had my wallet before we left for day 2 because I clearly remember taking out cash to bring with me to the festival.
An hour or so later my friend was packing up his stuff because they were planning to leave to the airport as soon as they got back from the festival and realized that his spare phone was missing. That's when we put two and two together and realized that we were robbed, and that that was the reason why I couldn't find my wallet even though we seemingly looked everywhere. I quickly ran over to my backpack to find that my Macbook, GoPro, and external hard drive were also gone, as well as my watch that was on the desk nearby. Our other friend lost her wallet and credit cards. All in all we lost around $3000 worth of stuff.
We immediately called security, who came after about 20 minutes. They asked us to go into detail about what we lost, what time we were gone from, etc., basically all the stuff I explained above. They gave us some forms to fill out and asked for our contact information. They also advised us to call and file a report with Metro PD and gave us specific instructions on what to tell them, and also gave us the reference number of the hotel's security report so that Metro PD can coordinate with the hotel and vice versa. We were told that they would undergo an investigation to check the security footage and the locks and then contact us when they find anything. I was also told that because of the value of the items lost, this would be investigated as grand theft, which is a felony.
We (my group + security) immediately began to go over exactly how this could have happened and who could have done it. We were issued 4 hotel keys when we checked in, one for each of us. None of us ever lost or misplaced of our keys. We also never had any guests/random people over, it was only us, so it wasn't like we threw a fat rager and someone swiped us while we were all passed out drunk or anything either.
The security supervisor told us that most of the time when stuff like this happens, its human error. He brought up the possibility that maybe we left the door open or didn't close it all the way, or that perhaps the deadbolt was engaged and we didn't realize it when we were closing the door in a rush to get out and didn't turn around to check.
This is all possible. I'm not going to rule it out. That said, I HIGHLY doubt that we were that careless. Hotel doors are very heavy and rather loud when they close, and it's very obvious to see, hear, and feel whether or not a door is fully closed or not. We also engaged the deadbolt, went outside the room, and then closed the door in an attempt to see what it would look/sound like if we had done this while in a hurry to get out. From the outside, it looked plain as day that the door is not fully closed, and the sound that the door made was clearly different as well (sound of a deadbolt hitting a small part of the frame vs. the sound of an entire door slamming shut).
In addition to that, the doors at PH swing with a lot of force and momentum because of how heavy they are. Even if we had swung the door open in a hurry to get out and didn't turn around to check that it closed, the force that it would've swung back with would almost certainly caused it to close anyway. It is nearly impossible to "accidentally" leave the door open/not closed all the way unless you are deliberately trying to do so. With this in mind, I am almost positive that we were not that careless to leave the door open.
We though of the possibility that maybe a member of the hotel staff came in and took our things. After all, they they have access to the all the rooms. Our "Do Not Disturb" sign was on all weekend, but if the hotel staff knows that we're here for EDC (it's kinda obvious to tell who is and who isn't) then they also know that we're going to be gone for 8+ hours each night and at what times. The security supervisor said it was possible, but he assured us that all hotel staff goes through extensive background checks dating back to 10 years prior, and that any hotel employee who is caught stealing is banned by the state of Nevada from ever working in a hotel again. While I'm glad to hear that the background checks are so stringent, that still doesn't erase the possibility that it was a hotel staff member. What if the employee had a clean record prior and just said "F it, I'm done with this job" and decided to go rob rooms? And surely there are plenty of staff from plenty of hotels that have stolen before and just never got caught; having a clean record does not make you a clean person.
And the third possibility we thought of: we may have just been hit by professional thieves. There are people who steal for a living and have the resources and methods to break into just about anything, including Vegas hotel doors. Key cards can be faked or compromised if you have the right tools to do so.
Anyway, the purpose of this post is to inform and educate, although I don't think I'm ever going to stay at PH again. It's been two days and they haven't so much as contacted us, nor did they offer to discount or compensate us in any way. Not so much as something small like a buffet voucher or waiving the resort fee, absolutely nothing. At this point I really don't think any of us is going to get our stuff back, but we did learn a lot from this and I urge you all to follow these tips next time you go on vacation anywhere:

MAKE SURE YOUR DOOR IS LOCKED. I know that everyone gets super excited to leave the room and head to the Speedway, especially if you're running late, which always happens in Vegas (you get too turnt and sleep in, people take longer than expected to get ready, the line for Bacchanal was 2 hours long, etc., whatever the reason may be). Sometimes we might just swing the door behind us and run out. Take the time to close the door fully and try to open it once you do just to make sure that it's completely closed.
USE YOUR ROOM SAFE. I cannot stress this enough. Throughout all my years of EDC, I have never used the room safe. Stupid me. I always thought, "What's the worst that could happen? This is a big hotel on the strip, it's safe, right? Who could possibly break in and how?" Regardless of who or how, the room safe is there for a reason. Use it.
PUT THE "DO NOT DISTURB" SIGN ON. I've heard lots of stories about stuff being stolen while housekeeping is cleaning peoples' rooms. If you need new towels or toilet paper or whatever, just call and have them bring it up. Make sure to open the door yourself to pick the items up instead of letting them come in. This won't guarantee 100% that hotel staff won't take your stuff, but at least by using the sign you are giving them an explicit "NO" and they are breaking the law and your right to privacy by entering, even if you are not there.
MIND YOUR SURROUNDINGS. This goes for life in general and also being at festivals. If you see some shady people/activity going on, be careful and stay vigilant.
DON'T LOITER. Look, this one happens everywhere I go in Vegas. I'm guilty of this myself. Your group is in the room pregaming/pounding shots, half the group slowly makes their way into the hallway, a few people are still inside not quite ready yet, the door is open, everyone is loud and excited and just hanging out in the hall. Anyone who happens to pass by (or people in nearby rooms looking out their peephole) now knows that are you in town for EDC and that you're about to leave and be gone for 8+ hours. Your room is now a prime target for thieves, burglars, shady people, etc. Try to keep your door closed at all times and when you do leave, make it as quick as possible.
BE CAREFUL WHO YOU LET IN YOUR ROOM. I trust everyone in my hotel room with my life. That said, I know it's Vegas and a lot of times people throw parties and have other people over. Those people might ask to bring friends who then bring friends of friends who then ask other friends to come over, and so on and so forth, and then you might end up with a dozen people in your room, half of whom you don't know or are just meeting for the first time. I have had friends who threw parties and woke up with stuff missing, taken by people who were in the room at the time of the party. If you don't know someone, it's probably not a good idea to let them in, especially if everyone is drinking and not in the right state of mind.

Anyway, I'm rather exhausted right now and have said just about all I can. I know this was a super long post and was rambly at points BUT, I truly hope that this serves as a PSA and helps people out in the future. This was a terrible thing to go through and I truly hope that this never happens to anyone else. And besides from this, I can honestly say that this was one of the best trips and the best EDC I've ever been to, and I refuse to let something like this bring me down. We may have lost a few thousand dollars worth of material goods, but we made memories that made a lifetime.
I hope you all had a blast at EDC, and until next time!

SHOT 2017/My tales of adventure in Las Vegas

So, you wanna go to SHOT show? You think it's all fun and games? Get to play with guns? See Jesse James and R. Lee Ermey? SHOT show is the annual pilgrimage of the unwashed masses to Las Vegas to rub elbows with youtube celebrities, bloggers and overseas businessmen copying US made equipment and share infectious disease.
If you love guns, gambling and gonorrhea - SHOT show is for you! It is not my typical idea of a good time. I am not a big fan of Las Vegas.
However: I do attend for a few reasons. First, I do enjoy travel and I'm platinum on AA so I can usually score an upgrade. Second, industry people are in there that I do hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars with business with so it's nice to put a face with the name and see what deals are out there. SHOT for me has been a bust for the past few years. Being a value guy, I want to buy at $1000 and sell at $3000 and as of recently the gun business is more like buy for $1 and sell for $1.10 if you get what I mean.
We used to do business at SHOT and now it's just checking in on foursquare, instagram and rubbing elbows with bloggers and the like. I want to make money, not spend money so this is very annoying to me.
Anyways, onto the play by play.
Monday, January 16th. One day before SHOT show.
http://imgur.com/a/HoFUm
Every time I've been rejected by a woman, I move $1 from checking into savings and I take the bankroll down to the Wynn for some play. Lets do this.
The TSA line is a shitshow thanks to, well TSA.
I slog my way to the lounge, as shitty as it is to wait for my winged chariot to DFW. I have gone from being in an abusive relationship with Delta to being in an abusive relationship with AA. Although if you really want to experience the battered spouse feeling, UA is a few gates over. This trip's light reading is trying to finish "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell. Such a good book as well as "Outliers" if you want a good read.
I walk up to the podium to find out that my upgrades do not clear, even as an AA Plat thanks to the addition of a FOURTH elite tier. Goddamn fucking W. Doug Parker. Asshole. I gate check my bags to make life easier for me and the rest of the folks. The gate agent calls concierge key and executive platinum passengers. I look down and realize I'm wearing a suit and board with the executive platinum folks because I do not care and I look the part. If you walk with a purpose and are dressed reasonably well, you fit the profile. I settle into my window seat and try to finish outliers. I pass out before takeoff and I'm awoken by the dulcet tones of the flight attendants preparing for landing. We land at Dallas a few minutes early and I hightail it to the Centurion for a quick bite to eat. I grab a plate and help myself to some of the excellent brisket, pecan encrusted chicken and some roasted jumbo asparagus. Yes, my pee is going to smell funny. No, I do not care. The lounge is packed. The bar is full and I grab a quick single malt as I have my meal since American's not going to feed me. They begin boarding to Mccarran as I walk out of the lounge. No time for a stop in the spa on this trip. I make it to the gate just as the call group 2 boarding.
I bypass the main line and walk up through the priority line giving no heed to the people that have been waiting there before me as I hold up my paper boarding pass with PLATINUM to the gate agent. I board and take my usual seat - the exit row without the seat in front of it. I'm aghast to see this sight.
http://imgur.com/a/dygil
The savages. Literally. The savages.
I put my loathing away for a moment and look down at the exit row. I have the window. The aisle is a large middle aged man and in the middle is what I believe to be a formecurrent linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys wearing a 52 regular sports jacket. He's not a fat guy in a little coat, he's a big fucking hulk of a man stuffed in an exit row seat that is already an inch narrower due to the tray table. I grimace as I take my seat and give him the manly nod. He does not look happy about the fact that his knees are in the seat in front and I'm stretched out like a Cheshire cat in front of a fireplace on a cold January afternoon.
The boarding door closes for an on time departure and Stephanie the FA takes her seat. He leans over and asks if he can take the empty row across the aisle and she takes one look at the three of us and gives him the nod. I bail out to give him a path of egress and suddenly the trip to Las Vegas has just become way more comfortable. I finish The Tipping Point somewhere over west texas, so I pop a xanax and dr pepper and zone out for the rest of the ride. I awake to feel one of the FA's jostling me awake telling me to put my seat up. I do so and we have a ride so smooth that not even the Delta guy behind me can complain about light chop. We catch the TYSSN4 arrival and the next thing I know it the Messier Dowty landing gear of the A321 touch the paint at Mccarran for a smooth rollout down 25L.
My phone battery is approaching grim death since this seat has no power plugs and I find bartman383 has sent me a message. He has been enjoying LV with his wife and their due to bad weather they are in the city of sin for a few extra nights. He invites me to dinner. I'm still pretty full from DFW and I tell him I'll be over there once I get my bags and the car and I'll see him when I see him. He gives me the info for the hotel as we pull up to the gate.
First stop: Centurion lounge. AA's app tells me bags being unloaded. I grab a quick bite of fried chicken and brussels sprouts since they are good for you and a chocolate pudding. The brisket and pecan encrusted chicken from DFW still has me full but I'm well aware of the speed of a union baggage handlers nowadays and who doesn't like chocolate pudding? Terrorists. That's who. Want to know how to screen for terrorists TSA? Set up a table of free chocolate pudding at the airport. The people who don't take any are members of ISIS. It's just that simple.
I grab my bag and hoof it to Hertz. I'm an idiot and I am an hour late for my pickup. Oops. Will an Audi A3 suffice? I sigh and I accept my Teutonic quattro chariot. I do a burnout in the parking garage and hightail it to the exit. I flash my #1 card and my ID and the gatekeeper gives me the go ahead. I get onto the the strip and traffic is awful. I'm going to be late for dinner. I make a left onto Russell Road and hightail it up the 15. I manage to get the car up to 100 as I pass the Luxor. My phone is dead so I can't message Bart about being late. Fuck. The exit approaches quickly as I put the 4 wheel disk brakes to work and sling the car around and head south on Las Vegas Bl. I accidentally turn into the Bellagio and I'm now running even more late. Fuck. Eventually, I get the car into the garage at the Cosmopolitan and head upstairs. I cannot remember the name of the restaurant but I head up to the third floor where all the restaurants are and I see this sign that's reminiscent of my days in retail.
It says RESTAURANT - LOUNGE - PAWN SHOP.
I laugh. I walk in. It's literally a pawnshop. I look around puzzled.
FC: Is this a restaurant?
Bald Headed Guy: Yes, through that door.
He points towards a door. I walk in to find a bustling restaurant, lounge via the entrance of pawnshop. This is insane. I pass a mirror and check myself out. I adjust my tie, after all it is YSL and the ladies LOVE YSL. Remember that. I find the hostess and inform her I will be joining some friends for dinner. They probably do not have me on the reservation though but I turn on the charm and she smiles and says no problem at all. She asks if my tie is from Hermes. I say no, I'm a YSL guy. She looks impressed as I tell her I'll make a quick lap of the room to see if they're there and surprise them. She gives me a nod and tells me to go right ahead. Still got it.
I spot bart and his wife who I can only remember vaguely from gunnitlive after party video and I pull up a chair. Bart is surprised to see I made it and they are in the middle of dinner. They offer to ply me with food and beverage but I decline as I'm driving so no booze for me and no food since I am stuffed from Dallas. We chat about life and liberty over libations. Bart's wife thinks I am hysterical. She's had a few drinks and they are already into their main courses. The brussels sprouts are way too salty and we have to send it back. No bueno.
Bart invites me up to his suite on the top floor of the hotel where we are to meet Brogelicious later in the evening. I say, when in rome......we head to the top floor of the hotel tower where Bart shows me his view from the balcony and cracks open the mini bar for some more libations. He asks if I want a drink and I say I better not. I'm driving.
Not 30 seconds after arriving, brogel shows up. Bart's wife hugs brogel. She's infatuated with him. We start shooting the shit and bart opens up the minibar and tells us to take anything we want, it's on the hotel. I laugh and I look outside as bart opens his yeti 110 for some silver bullets. Apparently he is so baller the hotel will send up a yeti 110 filled with beer to make him happy. His wife is apparently such a baller. I ball on a budget. They just ball. Hahaha.
We shoot the shit some more about guns, gun stuff and people on the reddit for a while. I get a little thirsty and I crack open bart's cooler. I ask him how long the stuff in the cooler is supposed to last and he says until Wednesday.
I look down and I am agape at what I see.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a saltshaker half-full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... Also, a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge, and I knew we'd get into that rotten stuff pretty soon.
I mentally prepared my butthole and I decided to help myself to a coors light against my wishes but Bart, Bart's wife and Brogel are all drinking so I let peer pressure take hold as I cracked open a beer with them. We head out to the balcony to smoke some cuban cigars together as bart's wife takes a photo of all of us. We all look like hell. Haha.
As bart downs his second beer, he asks me a question.
Bart: ever go hunting?
Me: Ducks a little bit but not much
Bart: ever want to hunt some deadly game?
Me: Like on african safari?
Bart: No, I mean like.........man.
Me: Hahahahhahaaha you're just fucking with me. Hahahahahhaa. That's really funny.
Bart: No really, the concierge here at this hotel will set it up for us. It's amazing. I remember my first hunt......
Brogel starts laughing and I realize they've been doing a bit. I've been had.
We bullshit about SHOT and Barrett's shotguns and other things and next thing I know, it's late but bart hands me a mixed drink. I sip it a bit and I was in the middle of a tirade complaining about my customers. Suddenly, there was a terrible roar all around us, and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the city, and a voice was screaming: Holy Jesus. What are these goddamn animals? Nobody seems to understand what I'm talking about. It's cold on the balcony. Our cigars are done. We head indoors. No point in mentioning these bats, I thought. Poor bastards will see them soon enough.
Back indoors I realize Brussels sprouts and coors light is a bad choice. Seriously no bueno. I excuse myself to the bathroom and drain the vein. The asparagus funny smelling pee and the side effects of beer and brussels sprouts is a noxious combination that a defense contractor should weaponize it. It's pretty bad and not even cuban tobbaco can mask the smell.
I sit back down and continue to talk about guns and stuff with bart and the gang and bart asks who ruined the bathroom. I apologize as he sprays a bunch of febreze around and opens the balcony. I apolgize to brogel. He is not accepting my apology. (sorry :( )
Nearly 11, it's about time to pull chocks and mosey on down the dusty trail. I don't want to prompt an evacuation of the hotel due to noxious odors so I decide to leave and bart seems to be kinda mad that I've ripped ass and polluted the sanctuary of his hotel. Half a coors light and brussels sprouts are no bueno in my book now. Bart decides to party hard with his wife and I offer brogel a ride home. He seems skeptical to share a confined space with me after I have just destroyed bart's hotel room. The car has 4 windows and the Uber will cost him a few bucks he can put towards ammo. He relents as we head down to the garage to find my car. Thankfully we find it quickly and I manage to contain the weapons of ass destruction for the 16 minute ride off strip to casa de brogel.
He says I'm not that bad a dude and I agree as I hightail it to my hotel. I cannot find my hotel reservations so I call my travel agent to see.
Apparently the Wynn was not in my travel budget this year. I have come to find out I have been booked at Circus Circus, much to my chagrin. How bad could it be? I've stayed at the Wynn. I've stayed at Encore. I've stayed at the hotel that Elisabeth Shue's character got raped in in Leaving Las Vegas - but Circus Circus? Did I mention that I HATE CLOWNS? I HATE CLOWNS. Fuck.
I pull into the parking garage and the check in line resembles something straight out of the TSA line at Mccarran. 45 minutes to check in. The clerk is friendly and says he's also from Louisiana which is neat. He asks if I've stayed there before and I, being a connoisseur of old vegas history I decide to make a joke and I tell him the last time I was there, Jay Sarno owned the place. He got a laugh. I head up to my room and unpack. The lobby is clean as an old vegas casino can be, the room is clean and there's no way to plug anything in since the hotel predates personal electronic devices. I plug my phone into my external battery and collapse on the bed. I message Bart and chugbleach instead of falling asleep about show tomorrow and I offer to pick bart up early since there is no shuttle from the cosmo.
Tuesday, November 16th SHOT Show Day One
I awoke several hours later in a daze......the clock said 10AM. The show opened at 8:30. Fuck me to tears. I hurry up and get dressed and down to the sands convention center. The parking lot is FULL. The entire complex is a mess. When my man Steve Wynn built his joint he didn't build enough parking. So people would park at the Venetian and now FUCKING NOBODY CAN GET A PARKING SPACE. Holy shit. I eventually say fuck it and park over at the Wynn and walk over to the Sands. I meet up with a few of my regular suppliers and I see nothing interesting at all. Bart went to bed at 6AM after spending all night partying with his wife over at the palazzo. I joke and say that he just should have stayed there. Bart is amazed at the size of the show and we have lunch at the most disgusting place in las vegas - the convention center bistro snack bar. Bart is a wise man as he grabs a powerade and a fruit cup. I decide to try an "italian beef" and a fruit cup instead of fries to stay semi health conscious. The "italian beef" is the most disgusting thing I have ever eaten. It is flat out depressing. They give me fries with it and I demand a fruit cup. The sassy black woman working the stand asks me "DID YOU ASK FOR FRUIT? CAUSE RIGHT HERE SAYS FRIES" and I channel my inner Louis CK from the "this is how I talk" bit from SNL as I shoot back "WHY YOU FRONTIN ON ME I ASKED FOR FRUIT AND YOUR ASS BETTER BACK UP AND GET ME SOME FRUIT" so she goes back and gets me some fruit.
The "italian beef", my fruit cup, bart's fruit cup and powerade comes to $81. My platinum amex comes out and I treat bart to "lunch". We bullshit about guns and stuff in the Springfield booth as we wait at the world's worst concession stand. We eat and Bart is so hungover that he thinks he is in need of physical therapy and a wheelchair. There is no way he is going to party tonight before his trip home. Or so I think. Haha.
I meander around the show a bit more and I find this, the most USELESS PRODUCT OF 2017. It's made by a company called radetec.
http://imgur.com/a/GOiCB
It's a shot counter. For your gun.
A digital odometer, for your gun.
The only person that would buy this is the guy like my dad that kept a spiral bound notebook in his car where he documented how many miles he traveled per tank, gallons dispensed, PRICE, service station and whether they had a different price for cash/charge, oil consumption, tire rotations, alignments, all services - scheduled or otherwise, and a running odometer. Does anyone know the gun owner who asks for a round count when they are looking at a used gun? The question I always shoot back is "do you want to be lied at a little or do you want to be lied at a lot?" because that's what you're asking for when you ask for round count.
UNLESS YOU BUY THIS PRODUCT!
I roll my eyes so far back into my head that I nearly lose my balance. This is idiotic. I cannot fathom anyone willing to buy this. What a waste of perfectly good exhibition space.
Bart heads back to his hotel after visiting SHOT show for a few hours, not getting any swag and to get an IV of fluids since he looked like he was rapidly approaching grim death.
I wrap up visiting prime vendors and checking out the new products, or lack thereof because I have something on the schedule. At 4:30 there's a suicide prevention for retailers seminar hosted by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. As many of you know this is an issue that is important to me and perhaps we as retailers should be doing more. The keynote was from their chief medical director talking about the accessibility of firearms and the mindset of the "typical" suicide. Mostly men. If you are a veteran you are at a significantly larger risk. The information was presented very not surprisingly and one of the things discussed was that we only spend around 21M a year on suicide prevention.
A few take away facts from the keynote:
When suicide barriers are put up on a bridge, suicide rates for the entire area drop. The key to preventing suicide is getting people to talk about their problems. Once you can get someone out of that mindset, they are statistically less likely to do it and live productive lives afterwards. There are certain terms that they are trying to get away from - for instance, they are not saying "committed suicide" they are now saying "died by suicide" in order to bring awareness and tell it like it is.
One thing that really was interesting to me was my reading on the flight in from Dallas. In The Tipping Point, Gladwell discusses how things stay the same and suddenly they all change. One of the things that he discusses is in micronesia - where teen suicide was practically unheard of became an outright epidemic. One teenager did it, for reasons passing understanding to me as an outsider and then all the other kids realized that they too could escape their pain by hanging themselves as well and suddenly the suicide rates in micronesia became so high to where it became a public health issue. I wish I could show you all the article I wrote on TTAG about my friend's death but it has been lost in the cloud and I am unable to find the last draft I sent to print, but it echoes some of the problems we have with suicide and mental health in the firearm industry.
After the keynote, the good doctor opened the floor up for questions. Her keynote posed a lot of statistics but not a lot of answers. I am a detail oriented granular data guy and I did not get a solid grasp of the AFSP solutions posed, if any.
Several firearm dealers discussed the lack of a cohesive solution and the takeaway was they're trying to develop awareness for the suicide problem. Their goal is to lower suicide rates but how they get there is yet to be determined. I didn't like hearing that and the comments from the crowd reflected the lack of a "here's what you can do TODAY to help this problem" part of the initiative.
Going around the room, one dealer who used NICS said that if a customer was just flat out acting funny - he'd lie to the customer and say there was a delay with NICS even though there was an approval just to get them to not be able to have a gun for a few days. The crowd applauded this initiative, however I'm not sure lying to customers is the best way to run a business and treat them with respect. Another dealer brought up an interesting point. When someone comes in looking to buy a gun and they don't know what kind of gun they want, what caliber, and are generally clueless - they're either buying a gun to kill themselves with, OR perhaps they are a very uneducated prospective customer - and there is no clear way of finding out which is which.
The problems presented by the AFSP are real. The solutions aren't there though. Yet. Ideally I'd like to see some change to that. However, there's some problems.
I hung around and asked the good doctor and her staff some questions and I am in no way denigrating her life's work and her dedication to preventing suicide since she has dedicated her life's work to the issue, but the conversation went something like this.
Did you do any research on the accessibility of firearms from a retailer from the legal standpoint?
"No, we haven't"
Do you know how the NICS or state POC background systems work in regard to mental health holds, etc?
"No"
One of the problems that I foresee right off the bat is that you talked about how you are fighting time, and if you can get someone out of that suicide mindset - even for a few hours, you can get them into that higher survival bracket. If we apply a one size fits all solution to it like California and put a 10 day wait on everything with the goal of protecting someone from their own life, how do we balance that with the needs of the woman who has been hiding from her abusive spouse and needs a gun right away?
"That's a good question that I don't have an answer for."
Their initiative, I admire - the lack of solutions is a little off putting however. I tell the doc about how my friend's suicide has impacted me and she seems to be sympathetic to the situation as does her colleagues. I am given her cards and told to call the next time I'm in New York so we can get together and discuss things within the industry. I'll give them a buzz in a few weeks when I'm up there on business. On my way out of the hall, I run into Massad Ayoob. Nice guy. I've admired his work over the years. Bart invites myself and chugbleach to dinner, I can't reach Chug and even though I am beat I decide to hang out with Bart and Mrs Bart
Bart: What do you want to eat?
FC: Let's find a nice seafood restaurant and eat some red salmon, I feel a powerful lust for red salmon.
I begin vomiting.
God damn mescaline. Why the fuck can't they make it a little less pure?
We eventually head downstairs and order too much food. We are tired and not very hungry. Bart is still hungover and barely able to process food. His wife is grazing on all sorts of meat products. I am in awe of how they are both still upright after six nonstop nights of partying. I've only been here one day and I feel like I am about to die.
Dinner concludes with an awkward hug with bart's wife - I don't know how other men feel about wife hugs so I have just avoided the prospect entirely. Like flying through Denver on Frontier. Or flying on Frontier. Ever.
I drive over to the Wynn to set up my markers and the poker room is full. I draw a $2500 marker at the craps table and watch the game a bit. I have never played craps before in my life but the three people there seem to be having fun.
I look down at my phone and I realize a plane has landed. fluffy_butternut has landed in Las Vegas on business. I had lost a bet and offered to pick him up from the airport. I cash back in my chips against my casino credit and head back to my car. I cannot find my car. Fuck. I wander the wynn garage which is covered in construction debris. I eventually find it and haul ass to the airport. Now, I didn't know this but fluffy has the WORST SENSE OF DIRECTION AT ALL. Seriously. I have no idea how he even made it to the correct city. He lands and has to get his bag and stuff and I circle the airport. He lets me know he's at door 77 wherever the fuck that was. I drive into the pickup portion and I see no sign. He then says he's coming up a level, and I tell him that I'll be there shortly. I park the car and Metro PD starts yelling.
Metro: You can't park your car here.
FC: Why not? Is this not a reasonable place to park?
Metro: Reasonable? You're on a sidewalk! This is the sidewalk!
I give the man a $20 and tell him to keep it running as I wander Mccarran screaming FLUFFY! HERE FLUFFY! I message fluffy to let him know I am the car parked on the sidewalk. I instantly figure out who he is having never seen a photo of him and I throw his bags into the car as we head for his hotel. I haul ass out of the airport and get the A3 on the highway.
Now this was a superior machine. Thirty nine grand worth of gimmicks and high-priced special effects. The rear windows lit up with a touch like frogs in a dynamite pond. The dashboard was full of esoteric lights and dials and meters that I would never understand.
We check in at the Rio where the desk clerk is friendly and flirty. I express amazement there is no line. Fluffy checks in and we take his bags upstairs and he offers to buy me food for driving him to the airport. I decline. We head to the bar anyways. He orders two beers and we decide to call chug. He's staying out in Summerlin or something because his company is apparently run by cheapskates. He asks if we want to hang out and shoot the shit. I say sure and ask if he wants us to pick up food or anything from CVS or something since I have the car and I'm able to do anything I want. He asks for some toothpaste. No problem. I may be an asshole on the internet but I have a heart of gold. We get some toothpaste get to the hotel.
Arriving at the lobby, we have no idea where he is. It turns out he gave us the address for the hotel across the street. We laugh and go to that lobby and shoot the shit till 3AM much to the chagrin of the hotel clerk. Fluffy has some beers and we plan on dinner the next day. I drive fluffy back and arrive at the hotel at 4. Fuck me to tears.
Wednesday, January 18th. Day 2 of SHOT show.
Alarm goes off at 7:30 AM. I wash up, eat and get breakfast. In the garage by 8:15. Nice. I get some dillo dust and check out the new Sig 220 DA/SA and SAO legions. Daddy likey. I go to a competing firm and I piss of my state sales manager by telling him his newer designed triggers suck ass. He says the company tested them and they're the same in every way. I ask him why the triggers have two different part numbers in the catalog and how come they're not interchangeable and if that's really the case, how come there's X changes in the supposedly identical pistol parts that he's holding side by side. He gets mad at me and says I'm not an expert on their product and perhaps I should take his job since I'm so smart. I agree that I'm smart and I hold firm that if he didn't want me to complain about the shitty trigger, they should stop selling guns with shitty triggers. I am nearly kicked out of the booth.
I meet up with some of my wholesale reps and I'm mid convo when I see Itsgoodsoup and his friend walking around the show. I yell SOUP but he does not hear me. So I grab his friend and find him and I tell him we should get together at dinner with fluffy and chug. He agrees.
The show winds down, I get some business done and nothing much else. We break for a shitty gunnit live lite and I take a few questions from the crowd in fluffy's suite at the Rio. Dinner is at 8 and we arrive at the restaurant late to find soup and his friend sitting at one table and chug and his girlfriend sitting at another. Perhaps we should have gotten here a little earlier. Hahaha. So, fluffy said the place is really good and I order a few of the specialties of the house. Apparently according to yelp they do a kickass peking duck. Soon to be mrs chug is a vegan. But we can eat meat in front of her. I wonder how it's served and Soup's vancouver raised asian friend tells me that they normally carve it tableside. Our vegan says as long as there's no head she's cool. We're not sure if they can fulfill that request. So we order and food starts coming out and we tell tall tales of shot show BS and other stuff. Sure enough, the duck comes out with the head. No bueno. Haha. But I decide to treat us to vegan donuts at the vegan bakery across the street later. Seven courses later we are full. Vegan bakery closed. I am committed to getting her some vegan donuts though. We head to Fremont street to gamble. Fluffy wanders about and we try craps and we're not impressed. We hit some slots and eventually I hit the craps table where chug explains the game to me. We start betting on dice. And somehow we start winning. I find that the house allows you to take 10X behind the line. No idea what this means so I plop $5 on the pass line and the point hits 6. I drop $50 behind it and it hits. We go a few rounds and leave ahead. It's 2:30 AM. Fuck. I drive everyone back to their hotel. I get to sleep around 4.
Thursday, January 19th. Day 3 of SHOT show.
Wake up at 10AM feeling like crap. Debate whether to head straight to show and wander about. Fuck it. Went to halal guys for some halal. Delicious. Got vegan donuts. Dead drop them at the Palazzo lobby for chug and his girl. Show is a bust. Literally nothing exciting. Fluffy offers to buy me dinner. One of my customers who lives in Summerlin offers to take me to dinner. I pass on fluffy and he destroys the seafood buffet at the rio. I head to Sinatra at the Wynn for dinner with my customer. All good in the hood. Chug has been invited to the Glock dinneafter party and I'm not so we all go our separate ways. I call foghorn5950 and due to some weather, he's flying home early and our plans to hangout are fucked up unless I go tonight. I grab fluffy and we head to Whiskey Down. He orders a makers and I give him a funny look. I tell the waitress make it a bulleit. Everyone laughs. I talk shop with Jeremy also from TTAG and we shoot the shit over cigars and talk about useless products. Next thing we know, chug is out of the dinner and wandering the strip. We decide to meet up at the Linq. It takes us nearly 30 minutes to get out of Whiskey Down at MGM because the waitress was awful and messed up everyone's tab. It was a fucking disaster. To boot, MGM is now charging for parking.
FC: What a bunch of fucking jews
Fluff: You should just tailgate that lady in front of you out and screw them out of the $7
FC: I should
We pull behind her and watch as she gets flustered at the awful parking machine. Her nevada license plate says VETERAN. As the gate goes up we haul ass and screw MGM out of $7. I shout "THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE" out the window as we blow right by her up to the Linq. Through fluffy's awful navigation, we wind up at the loading dock for the Linq. Eventually we find chug and gf hanging at the penny slots. They are holding vegan donuts, which she is very appreciative of. Least I could do after showing her the head. Fluffy plays the House of Cards slot machine.
He stuck $100 in, played for 6 minutes and then got really mad and hit the cash out button and $80 was left after 5 minutes.
ITS EXACTLY LIKE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT!
Chug's gf asks to play a special slot machine called kitty glitter. We ask and the linq does not offer it but Harrahs next door does. So we head over there and the slot tech finds the kitty glitter machine. Fluffy sticks a C note in there and tells her to play and have a blast. So she's banging away at the one armed bandit WHEN SUDDENLY I HEAR THE SOUND.
It's PUTTIN ON THE RITZ in shitty .wav file internal speaker format. Hahah. She's just hit the progressive jackpot on the penny KITTY GLITTER machine. THIS PLACE IS AWESOME! We cash out after some play and a good time was had by all. I dump off fluffy at the rio since it was very close and drive everyone else back. It's late, I'm tired and the Palace Station oyster bar is open 24 hours......I head over there and there's a 45 minute wait.
So, I pull out my backup bankroll and using everything chug and fluffy have taught me about craps I belly up to the $3 min table where they let you take 10x behind the line. I'm still learning and the table is slow so one of the boxmen start explaining the game to me.
Box: So if you place the 6 or the 9 or individual numbers you can bet those but you gotta pay a little juice on it like a commission
Me: Like when you buy the hook?
short pause
Box: Yeah! Exactly like that! You got this!
So I played a little and went up a bit and down a bit. As you do. Plunked $5 down on the pass line and took full odds and the point hit. This game is pretty cool! So I hung around and watched for about an hour and finally decided to eat my winnings. I take $5 off my stack and, drop it on the pass line and announce dealer bet - $5 to pass. It hits. The dealers love me.
Maybe Vegas isn't so bad after all.
http://imgur.com/a/LGhDj
I have the pan roast at the oyster bar. No line. It is DELICIOUS. I get back to the hotel at 5AM. I don't care when I wake up.
Friday, January 20th. Day 4 of SHOT show.
Wake up around noon feeling like crap. Go to show. Debate destroying milk cart with wheels with an ax borrowed from fire station. Decide against it. Gas up car and find myself out by palace station again. Played some craps, hit the buffet and went for an early sleep.
It's midnight. The neighbors in my the hotel are having sex. A LOT OF SEX. I can hear everything. I gently knock on the door. No answer. I knock slightly harder. No answer. I head back to my room and close the door just as I hear their door open. I zoom back out to find a puzzled middle aged stocky and perhaps sticky Latino man looking both ways.
I get in his line of sight.
Me: Hey. I'm next door. It sounds like you're having a lot of fun. I get it. I really do. In fact I haven't had sex since the bush administration so I'm gunning for you man I really am. But it's midnight and I have a 6am flight and a rental car to return. So trust me when I say I'm really happy for you but if you don't mind I really need to get some sleep tonight okay?
The awkward silence is deafening. He nods without saying a word and mouths okay. I give him a manly nod and thumbs up.
Me: thanks. I'd shake your hand or fist bump but well you know.....
I give him a peace sign as he goes back into his little pleasure palace and I turn to realize that I have just locked myself out of my room. I am wearing boxers, a tshirt and barefoot. I head downstairs to the lobby. The check in at the front desk resembles the TSA line at Mccarran. Normally I would not be this rude but desperate times call for desperate measures.
The line is 50 people deep. I walk past every person. Fuck your queue. I approach the desk where someone is helping a guest and I raise my right hand as if I were in a deposition to get them to stop. The staff and guest looks puzzled as the angry barefoot man clad in nothing but boxers and a "uzi does it" tshirt approaches the desk.
Me: excuse me. I don't mean to interrupt. I have an emergency. I'm up on 8 and my neighbors are having a lot of sex. I mean a LOT of sex.
(This is the same front desk clerk who actually checked me in Monday night by coincidence looks back at me very awkwardly and puzzled.)
Me: this isn't your regular sex. I'm talking this is your (I begin air humping the front desk and slapping the granite counter with my palm and grunting loudly) sex. You could hear the plan B packaging open.
At this point - the ENTIRE FRONT DESK STAFF HAS STOPPED CHECKING IN GUESTS. The people in line and are watching the show. The clerk is stunned. Speechless. Shock and awed. Crapped out and busted. The women are covering their children's eyes and ears. The men are wondering if this show requires a 2 drink minimum.
Me: now I get this is Vegas. Everyone wants a good time. It's midnight. My flight leaves at 6 which means I have to be up by 4. And this just isn't working. So I asked them to keep it down and I locked myself out of my room. So if you can make me another key or move me I'd appreciate it.
The clerk nods.
Clerk: of course. may I see your ID?
Years of ballet have prepared me for this day. I step back to make sure my genitals are still ensconced in my boxers as I pirouette and gesticulate wildly.
Me: DO I LOOK LIKE I HAVE ID?
The floor manager steps over and asks me to head down to the end of the desk where she will make me a key. I give her the room number and thank her after she offers to have security sent up to shutdown the best little whorehouse in Vegas. I tell her it may not be necessary. As I take my keys and walk away the people in line break out in raucous applause.
I take a bow and miraculously my boxer shorts don't rip. These people are my subjects and I have been crowned the the king of the three ring circus that is the circus circus lobby. Im offered a $1 tip from a kind soul but I decline.
My walk back to the hotel elevator bank is uneventful. So much so that I realize it is going too well. The other shoe, if I were wearing one felt as if it was about to drop. Suddenly a dumbass in a rascal scooter is heading toward me at flank speed as his head is turned to look at everyone BEHIND HIM. There's no way this will end well.
For you gentle readers joining us mid conversation - it's midnight and I need to be at the airport in 4.5 hours. I can just see it now. (Cue the harp noises)
Scene: Emergency room
Nurse: Allergic to anything? Me: NKDA Nurse: cause of injury? Me: what's the IC10 code for "run down by drunken buffoon on motorized wheelchair?"
I saw my life and confirmed upgraded first class seats home being given away by the Mccarran gate agent flash before my eyes and my catlike reflexes kicked in and I jumped to my left into the wall, mid 1960's Las Vegas union construction being the path of least resistance. Think "The Bodyguard" with Kevin Costner.
The buffoon barely realizes what happens. Children are amazed. "HEY MOM! Look! That guy just ran into a wall!"
Me: it was that OR GET RUN DOWN BY SOME JACKASS ON A GODDAMN SCOOTER GOING FULL SPEED DRIVING LIKE A....
I look down and a midwestern nuclear family with two children of formative age are waiting for the elevator. I change my last word.
Me: LUNATIC!
I look over to the parents.
Me: I'm really sorry. This is a family joint and I shouldn't have cursed the drunken scooter driver like that. Sorry kids.
Parent: no big deal. They've heard fucking worse.
I crack a smile at her word choice. Fucking worse. Yeah. That sounds like my evening.
After jumping into a wall, I'm now wide awake and unable to go back to sleep. I make the plane and push on time. The 737 comes to a stop short of the runway and holds. Something is wrong. The pilots come on and say that they loaded more cargo and passengers than planned so they have to redo their numbers. We're waiting on the taxiway with both engines running as they do this and the waiting music comes on. What's the first song?
Whitney Houston - "I Will Always Love You"

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Most Las Vegas buffets remain closed. Buffets have long been a staple of visiting Las Vegas. That’s not quite the case right now. In fact, buffets may no longer be a Vegas tradition — especially for those who only stay on the Strip. COVID-19 might have been the beginning of the end for buffets in Las Vegas. Las Vegas Advisor: Nevada governor extends COVID-19 restrictions again. By Anthony Curtis ; Jan. 17, 2021 ; Heightened restrictions related to COVID-19 precautions in Nevada could have been lifted ... They are likely to be the last to recover, and this has led many to prophesize we have seen the last of the Las Vegas Buffet. UPDATE! As of June 18th, the Wynn Buffet is OPEN! – there are few changes, such as limited seating, Tableside Service, and extra sanitation, but Vegas Buffets are BACK! Answer 1 of 5: Hello friends, does anyone know if there is any list of restaurants that are open in Vegas can be found online ? Something that gets updated frequently. Also any buffets are open on Strip? If so how is it different from buffets before covid... Las Vegas' marquee attractions, including its signature shows, night clubs and raucous adult-only pool parties, have not as gathering in groups is still prohibited. 6. The Wynn and Cosmo buffets are open at this time on the strip. There are a few off the strip open. At the Wynn it's more like an all you can eat restaurant with table service, Cosmo is like a cafeteria with employees ladling out the food. Answer 1 of 2: I believe i read that Cosmo and Wynn buffets are open. Are an other strip buffets open ? Thanks MGM resorts closed buffets at all its Las Vegas properties before states began shutting down, and since then they’ve been suspended elsewhere. In a post-coronavirus world, buffets are the type of situation many people will avoid due to the large number of people congregating around — and breathing on — food in a confined space. June 22: What’s open and closed this week in Las Vegas A sign on a gaming table in Paris Las Vegas reminds visitors that they need to cover their faces. A statewide mask order will go into ... The smorgasbords that have reopened, such as at the Cosmopolitan and South Point in Las Vegas, Atlantis in Reno, and the Golden Corral chain in certain locations around the country, are no longer self-serve; now, servers dish out the food to buffet-goers. As for being big money-makers, we wonder where you might've heard that. For decades, the buffets in Las Vegas were, instead, big loss leaders for the casinos, used to lure gamblers attracted by the little prices of the large all-you-can-eat ...

Las Vegas: What's open and closed amid coronavirus - Los ...

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