Vegas at a Glance Part II – The Unforgettable Fire
Last Updated on Sunday, 8 November 2009 10:25 Written by Tim Akimoff Sunday, 8 November 2009 10:25
“Ice
Your only rivers run cold
These city lights
They shine as silver and gold
Dug from the night
Your eyes as black as coal
Walk on by
Walk on through
Walk ’til you run
And don’t look back
For here I am”
From the time I first heard their Irish anger on American soil, I’ve loved the music and the message of U2. Their rock-ballad activism defined much of my childhood view of politics, religious issues and love.
“Joshua Tree” was one of the first CDs I owned, and my brother and best friend and I dragged my dad to see the movie “Rattle and Hum.” Somewhere in there, Bono yelled out, “Fuck the revolution,” and I’m pretty sure my dad didn’t hear another word after that. But we loved them in spite of our parents’ misgivings about the band and their influential music.
Cheryl and I woke up around 11 a.m. on Friday morning. I checked the tickets again for the hundredth time. I’d long ago memorized the date, time, location and seat assignments for the show. But there was something reassuring about seeing the printed confirmation of the fact that in eight hours I’d be seeing my favorite band live, again.
The lights of Vegas seem to shine even in the broadness of daylight. The sun glinted off the Wynn towers to the south of our room, and sunlight bounced like a pin ball off the towers and smoked glass of the Strip.
The casino was ringingly busy at midday as we left Circus Circus in search of food. Having slept through breakfast, we’d worked up a healthy appetite, though not quite enough to tackle one of Vegas’ famed buffets.
We settled on a Korean food place just off the Strip, and the selection of kimchee was so good we spent a good chunk of the afternoon picking at it and chatting about nothing in particular.
“Carnival
The wheels fly and the colors spin
Through alcohol,
Red wine that punctures the skin
Face to face
In a dry and waterless place”
We walked through several of the high-end hotels, avoiding the over-priced bars and walking past the roulette wheels spinning luck in reds and blacks. We saw well-leathered women sipping cocktails or red wine and shaking their ta tas for their boy toys in the privacy pool.
It was difficult to focus on anything, and so nothing really had any shape or form until the concrete preparations started.
“Walk on by
Walk on through
So sad to besiege your love so head on
Stay in this time
Stay tonight in a lie
I’m only asking but I
I think you know
Come on take me away
Come on take me away
Come on take me home
Home again”
The hour-and-a-half taxi ride to Sam Boyd stadium revealed little about a city in which there is very little under the surface. Vegas isn’t exactly a lie, but it can feel like one.
Most people know that I don’t deal well with crowds. My claustrophobia has come of age in my mid life. Walking into a crowded stadium with tens of thousands of people has all the comfort of walking in to a mine field. If I could travel with my wife all the time, my life would be much easier. As it was in this case. The thought of seeing U2 and being there with my best friend was like a balm.
We settled in with a couple drinks and found our cheap seats in time for the Black Eyed Peas to start.
“And if the mountain should crumble
Or disappear into the sea
Not a tear, no not I
Stay in this time
Stay tonight in a lie
Ever after
It’s lovin’ time
And if you save your love
Save it all tonight”
They played everything I could have wanted. From the songs that formed the soundtrack of my adolescent rebellion to songs that continue to define my desire not to conform. “Sunday Bloody Sunday” brought a tear to my eye and “Where the Streets Have no Name” made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.
After more than two-and-a-half hours and three encores, the boys left the stage shaking hands and hugging each other the way I think I would if I was playing in a band like that.
“Don’t push me too far
Don’t push me too far
Tonight
Tonight”
The after-concert buzz lasted through hours of waiting for a bus to take us back to our hotel on the Strip. It was 3:30 a.m. before we walked back through the smokey casino and crashed into bed with the strains of “No Line on the Horizon” fading into laundered sheets on a king-size bed.
Waiting in line with others at two different bus stops was an exercise in patience for me. Humans have an uncanny ability to be mean and short sighted when out of their comfort zones.
I slept with the music in my head, the same way I passed the time on that long bus ride back to the Strip. It’s the music of my childhood, the soundtrack of my life, that unforgettable fire that defines my world.
Vegas at a glance Part I
Last Updated on Tuesday, 3 November 2009 06:16 Written by Tim Akimoff Tuesday, 3 November 2009 06:16
The first time I passed through Sin City, I was too young to understand much about the nature of sin.
Now, some 21-years-later, I have a better grasp on it.
The woman in the passenger seat is my wife, or so I told the sheriff’s deputy who pulled us over four miles before the state line that divides Idaho from Washington, just another 20, or so, miles from the airport in Spokane. Believe me, we’d have flown out of Missoula but for the extra $300 it costs to leave from there.
The good officer didn’t believe me and asked for her identification anyway, which she did not exactly obligingly give him.
We were both incensed, especially after he could find no dirt on us and promptly threw our licenses back through the window before speeding off.
The woman in the passenger seat has serious problems with things she perceives to be unjust. And that, in her book, was unjust.
So there we were, two fairly sinless people (as far as traffic citations go anyway) married for the last 15 years and with three kids almost old enough to make us feel old, on our way to Vegas.
Oh, and when I say sinless, I don’t mean we don’t have our baggage. Lord, do you know what it takes to stay married for 15 years these days? I don’t either, so I guess I’m just lucky, and with that thought, I figured Vegas might just be the best possible location to celebrate those 15 lucky years with the lady in the passenger seat.
Besides that, we were going to see a band that has defined much of the last 25 years of both our lives.
On the plane, she held my hand, which, while a wonderful gesture, didn’t do much to alleviate the flight panic that is thanks to 35 years of close calls and bad landings. The plane shuttered and shook and was airborne, while I was talking to God in no uncertain terms. After stops in Oakland and Los Angeles, we arrived in a warm and oddly quiet Vegas on Thursday evening. In my Xanax-induced fog, I frantically searched for bus service to the Strip, having heard taxis automatically charge $30 for an airport run.
A $6.50 bus ride later, and we were unceremoniously dumped at Circus Circus, where we were to stay in a smoke-filled room that could have been used to film any one of dozens of 70s-era television shows.
An hour later, we set off in search of food and adventure.
The Strip is nothing if not an homage to all the worst ideas 2,000 years of history can unleash upon a world. The architecture is great, the style, design and feel of the place is electric, but you can’t help but look at the Roman motifs and think: “yeah, but these all disappeared under the rubble of time, collapsed, the cathartic waste of greed and empire.” OK, so maybe you’re not thinking that, but a similar thought crawls through your mind as you walk among steel recreations of yesterday’s fallen glory.
I don’t believe there is a man out there who does not like pirates. Those swashbuckling, anti-heroes name after bacon, of all things, are all we think about from the first time we hear about black beards, long swords and buried treasure. So Treasure Island was a natural first stop.
We hurried through the casino, which was only a few shades newer and less smoke filled than Circus Circus, finding ourselves flattened in a crowd crawling like cockroaches toward a ship full of scantily clad women. Some small man pressed two black tickets into our hands and told us to watch the show for free from the relative comfort of a glass-enclosed bar attached to the casino and which overlooked the lagoon. We shrugged and went in side. She found us a seat, while I went to order drinks from the barman.
“That’ll be $20,” he said in a very matter of fact way. “Excuse me, did you say $20?” I rejoined. “Yeah, I’m assuming you’re going to use those black tickets the guy gave you, otherwise that’ll be $40.00.” I’m sure the look on my face was the same as it is every single morning as I make my morning constitution. It wasn’t pretty and generally not shared with other human beings.
I waddled back to our seat, handed her the drink and sat morosely looking at the gleaming, white pirate ship full of busty sirens. At that moment, I could imagine nothing would cheer me up.
But then, of course, as it always does, the peppy banter of pirate speak pulled me from my mourning. The show began, and so we watched the Sirens of TI beguile a hapless sailor, as a ship-full of his cohorts arrived to rescue the boy. The overtly sexual nature of the show was fun in the way that it sort of defines the soft Vegas of your imagination. I got lost in the canons and the pyrotechnics of it all, and before long, I was too high to be sore about the overpriced drinks.
After, we walked down the boardwalk and watched and listened our way toward the Bellagio and the richest part of the Strip. A section where outfits could include a $500 pair of blue jeans with a $250 T-shirt or a Versace dress somewhere around the same price I paid for my last car. Needless to say, we were under dressed. The beauty of it is that my wife doesn’t care all that much. Sure, she still dresses up for other women, though she might not ever admit that, but she’s comfortable in her skin, and that makes me comfortable.
We wondered through crowds and busy shops where only the top one percent of the world’s wealthiest could really shop, that or the unexpected Vegas winner, of course. I have a theory that Vegas will take your money one way or another. You just know you’re not going home with what you started with, even if you don’t gamble.
Food becomes a necessity for every human being at some point. For us, that point was shortly after the Bellagio water show. We wondered across the street to the Magic Mile, which I always thought was in Chicago. We headed toward a place we saw in a coupon book on the plane as we were landing. A Churrascaria is something we discovered in New Zealand, of all places, and it’s reputation is based on all-you-can-eat-meat.
Being in our mid-30s, we are watching our weight, in my case, watching my weight red line. So, inevitably, we all fall into the trap of the do-nothing-and-lose-weight diet. The Atkins, the South Beach, the Paleo, whatever you want to call it. The I-eat-nothing-but-protein diet. This was what drove us to the Churrascaria.
As we dined, the waiter was ecstatic about our emphatic waves as he brought new meat from the grill. We salivated a little as he carved it into our waiting tongs.
A bottle of Fat Bastard and several types of animal later, we sat back thoroughly satisfied with our choice.
Our walk back down the Strip just had pass by a Jimmy Buffet themed bar. Whether it is prudent for a 35-year-old couple to be fans of Jimmy Buffet, I shall not say. But we are, and so after a frantic search for a decent $15 cigar, we ended up looking down the wrong end of a margarita so big it would make a pop top and limping home blush in comparison. If you don’t get the reference, you shouldn’t be ashamed, I love to quote even obscure Jimmy Buffet lyrics.
After an hour trying to sell our extra U2 tickets, we headed back out on the road, giant, green, glowing margarita in hand. I think it had a whole bottle of cheap tequila in it, but she disagrees, and I’m OK with that. It’s what makes our marriage strong.
Two hotels later, her “cute” shoes were starting to hurt. So we stopped so she could take them off and walk a while. Then she put them back on and we walked some more. Then they hurt, and she took them off again. It was this way for quite some time. In fact, I think we only made it as far as the Wynn, that high-rise solute to everything sadistically capitalistic in Vegas. As I marveled at the steel and glass structure that rises like an evil grin over the Strip, she tried to fix up her sore toes.
I’m not sure what time we made it back to Circus Circus, but between 12-hours of flying and another six-hours of people watching, we were exhausted. As you should be at 35 and not having been away from the kids for any significant “together” time since the age of 30. We crashed, and when I say we crashed, we crashed hard. A few bottles of water for hydration and boom, head, pillow, sleep.
In good company – Wednesdays with the boys
Last Updated on Thursday, 15 October 2009 10:01 Written by Tim Akimoff Thursday, 15 October 2009 09:35
We call our Wednesday morning hiking group “Morning Wood” for many reasons, not the least of which is that we usually hike through the woods very early in the morning in order to climb mountains.
For six weeks now, the boys and I have met in a parking lot at the base of 5,158-foot Mount Sentinel in the darkest part of each Wednesday morning.
We walk single file up a small path that juts off the Kim Williams Nature Trail, and before long the city lights are below us. Our headlamps barely throw enough light to see more than a few yards in front of our shuffling feet, and it’s like a dark cocoon but for the warm, storytelling voices of the other boys.
Each switchback is a different thread of conversation winding its way through the narrative of our collective week. No one interrupts or complains about the track of conversation, each boy simply enjoying the company and stories of others.
As dawn dims the city lights in favor of a bed-sheet sky, we can see the peak just up and over a patch of tamaracks and some beetle-killed ponderosa pine, and one of the boys says we’re almost there.
For the last 10 minutes or so, we hike in silence, winded and desiring the top and its promise of food and rest. The chill of high elevation and exposure to the elements starts to penetrate the thin performance clothing we wear, and it invigorates us for the last push up a sloping fire road that feels more like walking up a scree field on some steep-sloped Japanese volcano.
Then we crest the bulbous backside of Sentinel and the five valleys spread out below us in a strangely beautiful amoeba-shaped Christmas light display. Only the wind sounds as we unpack heavier sweaters or windbreakers, some food, usually home-baked bread, some almonds or trail mix. Then comes one of the most delightful feelings that man ever felt. One of the boys cracks the lid on his thermos and pours a steaming cup of coffee that lights up the nose like the smell of fresh-baked cookies or any one of a hundred familiar and pleasant, memory inducing smells.
Dancing on the fresh air currents swirling about us, the coffee teases and works its stimulating magic as conversation flares back up like a stoked campfire. Two of the boys pull out pipes and load them with plugs from bags from a local favorite tobacconist, which when they are lit only increases the olfactory Nirvana of being on the mountain top in the company of good friends.
Then we sit on a small rocky circle at what surely must be the tip top of the summit. We smoke, drink coffee, laugh full throaty laughs now that we have our breath back and talk about things you talk about when you’re looking out over your lives many thousands of feet below.
After a time, the boys, being of one mind and sensitive to the pressures of the burgeoning day, pack in the invigorating smells of coffee, tobacco and warm bread and let the wind wash away the vestiges.
Down is easier than up and more melancholy, unless you meet a mule deer buck in rut along the way. But some vestigial wisdom from our ancestors made the boys wary of the lusty creature and we gave him wide berth.
As the city rises up to meet us on our decent, so do the realities of our busy lives. The air seems to thicken palpably like lowering yourself into some viscous, humid jungle. The clean air from above lifting off us like like a veil.
In the parking lot in full daylight, two-and-a-half-hours later, we stand around briefly, not wanting to leave the company of the others but feeling the pull of work and children that need to be dropped off at school.
We depart, satisfied by sore muscles and wind-chapped lips and thoughts of that dark mountain and good company on another Wednesday.
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