Five blocks from the Pacific Ocean and I rarely touch its waters. Off to the desert.
The beach of the Mandalay Bay has always exerted a strong pull, a skirmish that my wallet sought to resist. I chanced upon a $119 rate, still too steep but which came with a couple of inducements that reduced it effectively to $90.The Mandalay Bay sports a beach fashioned out of 2,700 tons of sand visited by periodic waves. A bit like a private water park. Private but not secluded. For 10 kilometers before the state line, the squeeze into fewer freeway lanes in California backed up the southbound traffic. Not everyone has left. Mid afternoon Sunday, when you’d think the weekend hordes would have shot out of town, and each chaise lounge is accounted for.
Las Vegas packs 41 million annual visitors in 132,947 hotel rooms. Another 9,119 will soon add to this world record. Properties on Las Vegas Boulevard, the Strip’s official name, routinely boast a minimum of 3,000 rooms. Numbers of this sort create a stupendous transient population. The place heaves!
Las Vegas has gone from the purveyor of everything cheap, in all sense of the term, to the supplier of indulgences. Quality has shot up. Prices have leaped over.
Never enough of a good thing. Clever marketers know how to extract profit from every opportunity, however unrecognized its potential. Long lines to check in, to see a show, to hang out in an ultra lounge, to dance in a club, to eat dinner disappear for VIPs. The status is conferred democratically not just to the rich and famous, but to the aspiring rich. Pull out that credit card once more.
The Mandalay Bay’s swimming pool opens up early for those ready to pay up and thus get first dibs on prime beach property. If the thought of lying next to the hoi polloi makes you queasy, private cabana rentals will restore primacy to your privacy. Available from $350 today.
The environmental ethos that grips the nation with fashionable zest has not affected this city, the undisputed leader in a country of wasters. Whether genuine and authentic or the byproduct of branding, “green” gestures and promises have not struck the good conscience of corporations here.
On the Strip or at the Mandalay, I could not find even a symbolic recycling bin. Perhaps it is because any nod toward sustainability would question the dominant paradigm that anchors the economy.
The Las Vegas mythology rests on artifice. It relies on fake facades and artificial landscapes on a scale and pace that overpower.
To feed the unquenchable thirst, the region siphons nearby Lake Mead. Its surface stands at 1,109 feet (338 m), a level last recorded in 1957. It has registered a drop of more than 100 feet (31 m) and a loss of billions of gallons in the last 10 years.
You wouldn’t know it by the amount of construction on the Strip, elsewhere in the city and in Clark County. Living within one’s means is boring. Excess rules. We became marvelously skilled at justifying our intemperance long ago. Our cars, our homes, our appetites consume a disproportionate share of the planet’s resources. We quickly spout off pious pronouncements when we get nervous. We jump on quick-to-absolve fixes with the fervor of the faithful. But we much prefer the green solutions to adapt to our lifestyle rather than to modulate our behavior.
Las Vegas doesn’t pretend to engage in this exercise. No one inquires into the legitimacy of recreating tropical landscapes in the desert. If Lake Mead peters out, we’ll pump ground water from rural counties – they don’t need it. I hope politicians don’t have the temerity to ask local residents to skimp on showers when they approve every luxury hotel.
In that context, the sublimation of ocean and wave in the desert fits the greater scheme of ditching local constraints when they restrict the fantasy.
Ours began with a walk across the warm sand to the pool, as soon as we scored two prized chaises. One well-placed wave and I am all wet, relieved from the trauma of swimming pool entry. I line up next to fellow warm-water lovers in an orderly manner ahead of the approaching wave. The aim of body surfing is to ride it to the shore with a few key strokes and kicks. Or get tossed about, but that is plenty fun, too.Regroup and repeat.
The respectable current of the circular "Lazy River" propels the bather along, but at a more sedate pace. Like the wave, it is not fed by gravity, my friends… The Mandalay Bay river is shorter than its counterpart at the MGM Grand, but it, too, smashes through a waterfall.
I brought along several of the magazines that accumulated while I was away in Tahoe then twice to Europe – and Africa! The pile has grown into a miniature tower and the mail carrier adds to it regularly. I figured that the chaise lounge would be the ideal place to catch up on all this reading and that I would even have time to squeeze in a few pages of the voluminous “Les hommes qui n’aimaient pas les femmes.” The first installment of Steig Larsson’s Millénium trilogy sat atop the weekly best-seller list of novels compiled by L’Express and RTL when I bought it in France in early March. It has dropped now to number 3, followed by the other two tomes. The Swedish author died of a heart attack days after turning in the manuscripts to his editor. He was a journalist. The central character of “Les hommes” is also a journalist, and the tone of the book is quite critical of the profession. Larsson was known for his struggle against racism and right-wing extremism - my kind of guy!The books have been translated and released in the UK. Film production has begun on the first book, “Men who hate women,” a severe rendition of the French title where men simply do not like, but don’t hate, women. The translation of the second book is a tad tamer: “La fille qui révait d’un bidon d’essence et d’une allumette (The girl who dreamed of a gasoline canister and a match)” becomes simply “The girl who played with fire.”
With a potent Iguana cocktail of Midori and rum, I settled with the book, unable to achieve the proper comfort under the hot sun. It wasn’t long before Elisabeth and I headed out for the waves once more. I could do this all day, but the day ends early. Minutes before 6 p.m. lifeguards (yes, lifeguards, a dozen of them) whistled and cleared out all water features.
We retreated to our room to stumble upon Dr. Jeremiah Wright’s address to the NAACP convention. Excerpted sermons of Barack Obama’s pastor featured prominently in each news program and were predigested for our chewing pleasure. But this was the integral broadcast, courtesy of CNN who did not know whether it should congratulate itself for the courtesy of be wary of giving so much airplay to a controversial figure.I found his remarks on the “different but not deficient” history of African Americans constructive and scholarly. They surprised me because they contrasted with the divisive persona reported on television and in campaign debates. Should I have been surprised? The man holds two masters, one doctorate and speaks five languages – not the hallmark of impetuous mediocrity.
His allusion that God might not bless America, as is professed repeatedly, but damn it infuriated many. The context, of course, is lost. Do we truly seek a debate or do we pursue sound bites? Can we entertain that our enduring support of authoritarian regimes on every continent may strike some as unholy, even as the world community grieved at our side in the wake of September 11? I can’t think of any people outside of the U.S. who believe that God, however manifest, has singled out this nation for special blessing. Journalists ought to be the first in line to probe. Upset CNN anchors could not bring themselves to utter the words, relying instead on GD as shorthand for the controversy.
Dr. Wright got into more trouble after his address to the National Press Club and Q&A follow up. The AIDS and conspiracy comments do not surface in either video. What you hear during 36 minutes is an insightful and even witty talk, a desire to engage a radical, transformative change. It marks an abrupt departure from the fundamentalist drivel spewed by religious personalities whose hypocrisy and downright idiocy never rocks our collective, pitiful boat.
The drama played out on the heels of the acquittal of four New York City cops in the shooting of an unarmed Sean Bell on his wedding day, a grave decision that received little condemnation. Mr. Bell was shot 50 times, apparently not enough to qualify as excessive force. His terrible demise places him in a long line of similar tragedies.
After analyzing the Las Vegas Zagat guide up and down, I settled on a restaurant with an innovative menu at a reasonable price. Not stingy, I recognize that good food has a price, especially if served by a professional staff in an elegant setting. The Zagat surveyors ranked Bouchon second on their list of favorites: that was all I needed to hit Open Table for a dinner reservation.
We left the car at the Bellagio and walked the rest of the way to the Venetian in order to take in the energy of the Strip. For a Sunday evening, the sidewalks were packed with aimless tourists lost in neon distractions or internal deliberation about depleted finances. The porn peddlers did nothing to speed the process. But it is the convoluted pedestrian bridges at intersection that turned the pleasant walk into an exhausting obstacle course. We arrived at the 10th-floor restaurant frazzled.
Like dozens of upmarket Vegas restaurants, Bouchon is a brand phenomenon, the brainchild of chef Thomas Keller. A meal is far more than the sum of its ingredients. It is a conceptualized identity. The celebrated chef does not need to inhabit the kitchen. He (seldom a she) inspires. This observation does not detract from the quality of the cooking, even if it sometimes imparts a carnival mood. The trick is to keep the scales tilted in favor of the original vision and away from formulaic repetition.
The menu, printed on butcher paper, came wrapped around the napkin. In the dim light, I asked for the regular version. Elisabeth selected the Salade Maraîchère au Chèvre Chaud and a Croque Madame. I could not pass up the Salade de Betteraves et Mâche as an introduction to a Boudin Noir. Bouchon plays the brasserie card with dark wood panels and shiny brass fixtures, a simple, convivial and informal setting with specials scribbled on a slate. The standard dishes (the staff was trained to understand the French names) were delicious. I was especially enchanted by the goat cheese fondue on the salad and the interplay of caramelized apples and potato purée next to my (yikes) blood sausage.
The service was average, that is to say nonexistent. Our waiter did not bother to appraise us of the specials. The kitchen was out (poor management) of all of them except a soup (don’t keep them posted). As I ate the main course, he asked if I wanted to know what it was. Had Bouchon followed the order French people eat, it would have been fine. But the restaurant sticks to the American sequence where the soup and salad come before the main course and the waiter’s suggestion was annoying. He did not know how to serve the courses and withdrew plates separately. Water (chilled, such a bizarre concept) and bread did not arrive without our requests. The usual.
Keller aims for his restaurant to be “a neighborhood place serving simple traditional dishes in a home-like atmosphere.” A brasserie on its home ground certainly fulfills that description. But Bouchon hypes the sophistication of the dining experience, and charge a premium for it. Inept service may be commonplace but it is inexcusable. I pray that the staff at Keller’s landmark French Laundry restaurant in the Napa Valley has received extensive instruction. Otherwise, the accolades he has earned for his nine-course, $240 tasting menu (add another 35 bucks for a per se splurge in New York City) would fade.
I finished the meal with a personal favorite dessert of profiteroles, adequate but not memorable. We left the casino hotel without touring the indoor “Grand Canal,” a cavernous interpretation of the Venice waterway that distresses me. We took a cab back to the Bellagio and got stuck in traffic at 11 p.m. The Hong Kong driver said that things would quiet down after midnight when Los Angeles-area visitors would hit the freeway for the four-hour drive home, presumably to show up at work after a short nap.
The spring flower arrangement and decoration in the Conservatory were elegantly refined, an observation that extends to the rest of the Bellagio. Dinner at Michael Mina and Cirque du Soleil’s “O” would make for a perfect evening. (Assume that quality has a price.)
I woke up with my face starting at Eric Clapton's skin. Never before had I been able to inspect it with such intimacy. Never before had I watched high-definition television either.
Included in the room rate was a two-for-one breakfast at the House of Blues. I love the intimacy of this club, even without a band to serenade us on a Monday morning. On Sundays, they propose a gospel brunch that I’d like to attend. It turns out that the HOB on that other Strip in West Hollywood also schedules one. That’ll be a good reason to entertain ourselves some sleepy Sunday. I have seen Our Lady Peace there twice and got crazy at each concert.
OLP commands full attention north of the border where the band fills stadiums with ease, but not here. I suspect this showcases our established provinciality once more.
It was a late afternoon on my first glorious visit to Toronto. Up since the crack of dawn I was planning a mellow evening when I did a double take in front of a Queen Street West club. A sign advertised an improvised concert by the Pot-Bellied Communists. That alone would have generated nothing more than an amused smile, but in parenthesis, it read: “aka Our Lady Peace.”
I went in and someone confirmed the good news. How much? Five bucks! Five Canadian dollars, which at the time came to $3.50 U.S. However tired, I could not pass a chance to catch Our Lady Peace at a decidedly non-capitalist cost. It was at 10 p.m., which did not energize me, but that changed during the concert. The phone rang midway through. It was Jeremiah. Those were the days. I escaped when I didn’t yet need it.
OLP commands full attention north of the border where the band fills stadiums with ease, but not here. I suspect this showcases our established provinciality once more.
It was a late afternoon on my first glorious visit to Toronto. Up since the crack of dawn I was planning a mellow evening when I did a double take in front of a Queen Street West club. A sign advertised an improvised concert by the Pot-Bellied Communists. That alone would have generated nothing more than an amused smile, but in parenthesis, it read: “aka Our Lady Peace.”
I went in and someone confirmed the good news. How much? Five bucks! Five Canadian dollars, which at the time came to $3.50 U.S. However tired, I could not pass a chance to catch Our Lady Peace at a decidedly non-capitalist cost. It was at 10 p.m., which did not energize me, but that changed during the concert. The phone rang midway through. It was Jeremiah. Those were the days. I escaped when I didn’t yet need it.
We filed on I-15, leaving behind the speculative greed that has bestowed the highest rate of foreclosures upon Nevada, where one homeowner in 11 will hand over the house to a financial institution over the next two years. The recent economic expansion that vaulted Las Vegas to the top of every index and chart must feel hollow just about now.
Did anyone notice? Stagnant wages and inflated real estate don’t make for a happy marriage. Enormous wage inequalities don’t help. No amount of self-delusion, even with Las Vegas in the rear view mirror, can gloss over our deepening third world-ish conditions. For every John Paulson who pocketed $3.7 billion last year after betting against the real estate market (read: that people would lose their homes), millions struggle to escape insolvency. In each of California’s 58 counties, residents who earn the average income cannot afford an average-priced home. How long do we pretend this is sustainable?
We parked in the shade off the grandiose Baker Boulevard for a picnic. The “world famous” giant thermometer reads 33 degrees in the Baker shade – or it would were the display in metric. We paused here for lunch at the Mad Greek Café 24 hours back. Like other customers, we were not dissuaded by the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health placard that slapped the restaurant with a B after several critical violations were found.We closed out eyes as we sped past ugly town after ugly town.
“Are you there?
Is it comfortable?
Do you want to escape?
Life is waiting for you
It's all messed up, but we're alive
It's all fucked up, but we'll survive
We'll survive.”
