The Sounds of Silence

I tried to sleep in this morning at the Tropicana Hotel, but I woke up at 730 am.  My flight was not until 114 am so it was going to be a long day.  The Trop was going to charge me $35 to stay until 5, so I needed to find some things to do because I wasn't paying to lie in bed and watch ESPN.  After a little web browsing I had tentative plan.  I was disappointed when I discovered that the Liberace Museum had closed it's doors.  The HBO movie Behind the Candelabra got me interested in Mr Showmanship, and proved that Matt Damon is the most excellent actor of his generation.

After checking out I left my bags with the doorman because my first stop was in the Trop - Mob Attraction.  It was an interactive tour about the mafia and Las Vegas.  If you have ever seen a gangster movie then you wouldn't learn anything new.  It starts off at Ellis Island and they give you a passport and then you are supposed to work your way up through the ranks and make money working for Big Tony.  It's pretty silly, especially for someone doing it alone.  After an interview with one of his associates, I sat down at a cafe with a guy playing the role of Big Tony.  He and his associate didn't know if they could trust me because I was from Massachusetts.  Despite his concern, he slid an envelope of fake money across the table and told me to deliver it to his guy and don't say anything to the cops.  At this point I was barely able to contain my laughter at the ridiculous role-playing capers I had gotten myself into.  Then I went to the police station and was questioned by a cop.  He asked me why I was talking to Big Tony and what was in the envelope he slipped me.  I'm no snitch so I had to think quickly and said I was lost and looking for directions to Yankee Stadium and that I didn't know nothing about no envelope.  He pressed me harder, but I didn't give up the goods.  

So I ended up in the slammer.  I picked up the jailhouse phone after the third ring, as instructed, and Lucky Lucciano informed me that he respected my standup character and that I should head out to Vegas to make the real money.  The role-playing was over once I got to Vegas and I was free to roam around the rest of the exhibit and learn about the "players" of early Vegas.  I took some photos of the ridiculous portraits there and read a little.  My favorite quote from the exhibit was, "someone is always trying to take your place in this business".  

I appreciated Allen Smiley heading to prison in a white tux

           

The most interesting thing I found was the digital journals of Meyer Lansky.  I flipped through to see if there were any bits of wisdom and then I somehow broke the machine.

At the very end, right before I was transported to the gift shop, I was gunned down by two Tommy gun wielding gangsters and then welcomed to the family.  Didn't make sense, but whatever.  Was it worth $28?  No.    

I needed lunch so after Mob Attraction I went to In-N-Out Burger for the first time in my life.  It was so busy there was nothing in and out about it, but the burger and fries were good.  

After lunch I made my way to the National Atomic Testing Museum.  I only went to the special exhibit Area 51 - Myth or Reality.  It was pretty corny, but I got some statistics that made me think.  Let's consider for a moment the logistics involved in an alien UFO landing on earth.  Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is one of 100,000s of known galaxies, and I stress known.  Let's see how long it would take to travel from the earth to the sun, which would only be within our galaxy.  The Earth is on average 93,000,000 miles from the sun.  The other day I drove about 620 miles from San Francisco to Las Vegas.  If I traveled to the Sun at that rate it would take over 400 years.  If I went at a speed of 2000 mph it would be about 5 years, which is much more reasonable.  However, the Earth is closer to the Sun that it is to Pluto.  At 2000 mph, it would take over 200 years to reach Pluto, and that's still not out of this galaxy!  If there is life out there somewhere the one thing we know for sure is that life ends for all living things, so no being would be able to survive a trip of such an astronomical distance.  If you believe a UFO landed on Earth, then you're most likely a fool.          

  

I left the NATM with my alien ID badge and top secret documents and headed for the Bellagio. 

New York, New York

Paris

Excalibur, Mandalay Bay in the background, yeah, it's gold

The Bellagio is a gorgeous hotel.  I dropped my car off with valet and walked to the Bellagio Fine Art Gallery, and the main exhibit was Warhol Goes West.  Some of Andy Warhol's art works for me and some of it doesn't.  The room of floating helium-filled silver pillows is pretty cool.  Here's a link to that, Silver Clouds.  I also liked his row of polaroids, and I was drawn to Mick Jagger, Sylvester Stallone, and Debbie Harry.  I wasn't allowed to take photos.    

The whole Campbell's soup can and other advertisement pop art doesn't do anything for me.  Nor did his take on western portraits of Native Americans.  I get that particular images of the west have shaped our perceptions and myths of the west.  I wasn't into those, but I was absolutely mesmerized by the Screen Tests 1964-1966.

The Screen Tests are live portraits.  Subjects sat in front of a black and white camera for four minutes in a close up shot that showed their head and top of their shoulders.  The viewing room was set off to the side in a small area with the videos projected and there was a small padded bench to sit on.  Famous people sat for him but I didn't recognize anyone.  Here's a screen shot I found to give you an idea.

I went in to sit down and left after a minute to see the rest of the exhibit.  Then I was drawn back into the viewing room by a powerful force.  Turns out that four minutes of silence and staring is extremely intense.  It felt like the subjects were baring their souls to the camera even though no words were spoken.  It was as if the camera's penetrating eye would expose their deepest, darkest secrets and fears.  It seemed like each and every person was thinking about what the camera was revealing abut them, what fear or shame would the viewer discover.  Each of them was uncomfortable and it manifested in different ways.    

One woman tried to hide her discomfort by acting bored and another kept looking away.  A guy wearing sunglasses maintained some privacy by hiding behind them, or so he thought, because his mouth twitches gave him away.  One guy tried to look tough, but his throat swallows and raised chin revealed his false bravado and self-consciousness.  Another man tried to relax but his shoulders kept raising because he was taking deep breaths to calm his mind.  One woman didn't even have the strength to look at the camera for more than a couple of seconds, she looked around and made a telescope with her magazine, but, of course, looked away with it.  She'd rather make jokes than let anyone see her true self.  A woman and a man grew their hair so long it hung over their eyes, like a veil to hide their eyes from full view.  Nose wrinkles, blinks, and twitches all showed the discomfort of the subjects.

I couldn't look away, I noticed other people were coming and going from the viewing room but I felt like the only person there.  I was so moved by the vulnerability of these people who sat for these portraits almost 50 years ago that I felt alone with each of them and nothing could disturb us.  One woman started out with a stoic look on her face, but after only about thirty seconds I thought she began cry.  She was! She was crying.  Wow.  She cried a few tears at first and kept a tight look on her face and just let the tears roll down.  Then there was a steady stream of tears on both sides of her face - drip, drip, dripping from her chin and she looked away for an instant to compose herself.  I wanted to go to her and say - it'll be ok, baby.    

I had no idea how long I had been in that room.  I looked out the doorway and the entire crowd had turned into new faces.  The video transitioned to a woman who was fixing her hair, then she dabbed her eyes and showed off her long fake nails and large rings.  She kept fixing her eyes, hair, face, and whatever else might have been slightly out of place.  Unfortunately, no matter how hard she tried to appear perfect on the outside, she couldn't hide the pain.  She couldn't use make-up to cover the hurt she felt inside.  She may have fooled herself into thinking that if she appeared perfect on the outside that it would cure the despair on the inside, but she didn't fool me, I pitied her, and the hopelessness of the situation made me uncomfortable.  

Then, finally, another subject faded in, it was a man.  This was no ordinary man though because he appeared comfortable with the camera.  He blinked naturally, he didn't swallow hard or breath deeply or look away, and he wasn't afraid.  He was happy and invited me to join him in his contentment.  He didn't want anything to be different, he accepted life and all it's suffering.  It was ok to look at him closely because he didn't try to hide anything.  He offered a connection that was true and genuine.  Then, after what seemed like hours, I got up and walked out.  Screen Tests was a living work of art that  is beautiful and touched me deeply, it was pure genius.  

Then I headed for McCarran airport and dropped off my car.  My trip is just about over.  I'm sitting at the airport eating pea and barley soup and drinking a Dutch beer while I watch the planes over Las Vegas.

The Mountains and the Desert

I woke up early in San Francisco because I had a decision to make and a long drive either way.  I was heading back to Las Vegas because I'm flying home Wednesday night.  I had to decide if I was going to go through the San Joaquin Valley or through Yosemite National Park and the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  The mountain route would surely bring me to a significantly higher elevation than I was at in Flagstaff.  

When I say I had a decision to make I meant I was obviously, 100%, going through the mountains.  I had to see Yosemite.  I just needed to decide where to stop for breakfast and gas.  Was I risking my life?  Maybe.

I left San Francisco just before 8 am ready to take the longest (620 miles) and highest drive I've ever planned.  Courtney's playlist seemed just right.  Suzanne Vega sang Tom's Diner as San Francisco faded from my rearview mirror, and it was perfect.  Heyward, CA seemed like a good town to leave quickly. As I was filling up a guy in a pickup truck screamed through the parking lot and peeled out as he exited the parking lot.  It was one of those gasmarts where the clerk was behind bulletproof glass.  I gassed up, bought a Choco Taco for breakfast, locked the doors, and listened to Geto Boys, just like in Office Space.

In the second verse of Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangsta, Bushwick Bill got all philosophical on me and had me thinkin'.  He raised a fundamentally important question that we should all give serious consideration and thought to, "when the shit jumps off what the fuck you gonna do?"  I know what I'm about, I know what I'm gonna do, so y'all better know too, cause this world is chaotic and it ain't got mercy for fools.

At some point today I wanted to listen to Jay Z and Justin Timberlake because people back in Boston having been going bananas over the shows at Fenway Park.  Apparently, it was the hottest ticket of the summer.  I passed a sign for Murphy Road in Escalon, CA.

Between Oakdale and Tulloch Lake I saw a sign saying "speed enforced by aircraft".  I was trying to go as fast as reasonably possible to shorten the drive as best I could.  I looked to the sky and it seemed clear, so if Uncle Sam was going to get my by drone strike, so be it, I would accept that fate, I would take those odds.  It was 1030 am on a Monday morning in the summer, how many drones could possibly be over Central California right now?

I filled up at the Miner's Mart and grabbed a few aspirin to thin my blood a little in preparation for the high altitude I'd be in for the next few hours.

Soon I passed California's oldest saloon in Groveland, the Iron Door Saloon at 3100 feet in Yosemite Gold Country.  I find that claim to be highly questionable, am I right?

A Smoky the Bear sign informed me that the fire danger today was "extreme".

I paid $20 to get a pass for Yosemite and proceeded on route 120 through the park.  I queued up the entire catalog of the Zac Brown Band, including their live album Pass the Jar, because I wanted to put something on that was downloaded on my phone and would keep the airwaves occupied, hopefully, for the entire ride through Yosemite because there were steep cliffs and winding roads that required my undivided attention.  The elevation rose quickly to 5600 feet.

As it climbed even higher to 6200 feet, Zac Brown sang "But's there's no tomorrow/Not for everyone", and I sure hoped they'd be one for me, but I think the point he was making is don't use harsh words because they could end up being the last words someone hears.  I saw Zac Brown Band at Meadowbrook last month, by Lake Winnipesaukee, with Tommy.  Rain soaked the crowd for a few songs as we hid in the beer tent.

When Zac sang "when she loves me I'm on top of the world", I felt lonely.  Then the loneliness quickly subsided when I got my first glimpse of Half Dome as Zac Brown sang, "Quiet your mind/Soak it all in /It's a game you can't win/Enjoy the ride",  I did that, I did exactly that.  

Half Dome

Yosemite is a natural wonder.  Life on earth evolved because millions of years ago the conditions were just right for life to begin, and survive.  Our existence is a result of the perfect combination of circumstances and conditions, so we're all pretty lucky.  You're even luckier if you get to witness the natural beauty of Yosemite National Park.  No digital photographs can capture the awe of this place.  I took some photos for the memories.  I tried to not let the moment pass and lived inside Yosemite for a few hours.

El Capitan

Yosemite Valley from Tunnel View. El Capitan on left, Half Dome at center.

On my way out the east side of the park, and by on the way out I mean a dangerous 50 mile drive on twisty, narrow roads along steep cliffs, I stopped at Tenaya Lake, which was around 8100 feet.  I hiked to the shore knowing that if my body failed me in this moment that this lake could become my grave because I hadn't had cell reception for hours and there was nothing nearby.  It seemed worth it though.

Approaching Tenaya Lake

On the sand I kicked off my flops and dipped my feet.  The water was cool and refreshing and it felt good.  There were some other people doing the same thing and a couple of kayakers.

The elevation continued to climb and topped out at 10,000 feet exiting Yosemite at Tioga Pass.

I drove through Inyo National Forest, basically, by myself, gnawing on beef jerky because that was all I had to eat and and I was pretty hungry and there was nothing around for hundreds of miles.

Mono Lake

Driving through the mountains and the desert was cool, until it wasn't.  After Yosemite, I still had about 330 miles to Vegas.  I had a good view of the desert and the mountains but the wide-open space was so enormous that I felt small, isolated, and forgotten.  I hadn't had reception for hours and there was almost nobody else on the road, so I felt alone, shutoff, and disconnected.

These dips were like a not fun roller coaster.

I was welcomed back to civilization by a text from my buddy Weapon as I passed the Shady Lady Ranch, a brothel.  Prostitution is legal in Nevada.  I'd be lying if I said stopping didn't cross my mind, but I didn't, and I'd never do that because I'm too romantic.

About fifty miles outside Vegas the amount of bugs that were splattering on the windshield was unbelievable.  When I started to see the metro area of Las Vegas I felt relieved.  Before I began this trip I thought of Vegas as a been-there-done-that type of place.  Now that I was again seeking refuge in Las Vegas I fully grasped the history of the city as a stopover for weary pioneers going west or north.

I came here years ago for a bachelor party and overlooked the essential nature of Vegas.  I saw Vegas as a place to party, not as a sanctuary.  Now, after staggering back from Flagstaff last week and trekking through the Sierra Nevada mountains and the Mojave Desert today, Las Vegas is my temple.

Last night I was so tired from driving 13 hours that I ate dinner at 10 pm and then went to bed.  I saw the wonder of Yosemite and conquered the mountains.  I feel triumphant in the dust of high summer.  Now, I want to celebrate so I'm going to get a frozen drink by the pool.  The temperature is in the low 100s here and and the heat is so intense, even at 2000 feet, that whenever I'm walking outside I have to fight the urge to duck.  Check out these lovebirds that I was walking behind last night on the way to my room.

Yeah her hand is in his pocket, deal with it

The Fog

I printed my ticket to the San Francisco Giants game at the hotel and then got on the 101 around 11 am so I could get to the ball park and find a reasonable place to park.  I figured I'd explore the park so I wanted to get there with plenty of time before the first pitch at 1:05.  It was about 60 degrees when I got moving, a bit cooler than I was hoping.

When I got out of my car in the parking lot an older Mexican gentleman from the pickup truck next to me asked if my car was an electric or hybrid.  I informed him that it wasn't and he was surprised how quiet the engine was.  His surprise surprised me.  Then he saw my Red Sox hat and mentioned that he thought it was very special that the Sox were coming to play San Francisco next week.  He felt they have a good team this year and I agreed.  I told him to enjoy the game and joined the herd heading for the gate.  

The Giants were hosting Baltimore today so any fans wearing gear were all dressed in black and orange since the teams have the same colors.  The marvel of thousands of home fans decked out in their team's gear looks awesome and creates a community.  At the Dodgers the other night and today at the Giants I wanted to be a part of that, it was tempting to go buy a jersey and a hat and look awesome too.  The colors and the huge amount of people wearing them overwhelm me as a solitary traveler.  I did buy a cheap Dodger blue sweatshirt the other night because I was cold.

I walked around the lower and upper concourses at the park.  I took this photo of the Bay Bridge from the opposite end of where I would be sitting and as I was walking over there a guy stared at me and gave me a big thumbs down since I was wearing a Sox hat and Bruins sweatshirt.     

Bay Bridge

Then I walked right by a Gilroy Garlic Fries stand and I had to try them.

Garlic fries come with two mints

The fries were tasty but you have to dig deep to get the ones loaded with garlicky goodness.  I sat next to an attractive french-speaking girl, I'm sure the smell of beer and garlic dazzled her senses.  She farted after inhaling a churro in the 7th inning, so it all evened out.    

Fog covered downtown San Francisco

After eating about half the garlic fries I went to my section, 305.  I picked this specific area because I wanted to be in the shade, day games can be brutal just sitting in the sun even if the temperature is cool, and I thought it might provide the best views of the San Francisco Bay, which it did.  Once the sun came out the view was stunning.  Before the game started I chatted with a guy sitting behind me who asked if I was from Boston.  I said I lived in Lowell and he told me he was in Andover for business recently.  He worked for some electrical company doing...I don't know, I zoned out because it was so boring.  He was from Baltimore and lived in Nashville, which I did find interesting.  He claimed to have landed a plane in Lowell once that he was flying himself.  If there's an airport in Lowell I don't know about it, but I suppose you can land a plane anywhere, maybe he landed it on the boulevard by the bowling alley.
 

Click to enlarge

Even though I was in the "nose-bleeds" I liked my seat better than the other night when I was 10 rows from the field on the side.  A woman poked me in the back and then told me how she got caught up in Red Sox Nation when she lived in Brookline.  For the whole game I play along on the Preplay app.  I finished 3rd globally (out of a few hundred I reckon) and beat all the Giants fans playing along at home.

Baltimore smashed some home runs and the game was a blowout 10-2.  After the game some Boston people saw my gear and hollered at me.  I gave them a thumbs up.  There was a lot of traffic, obviously, but somehow I managed to take a few turns and find wide open streets within a couple of blocks of the park.  I was amazed because I was a complete stranger to this city.  I gnawed on beef jerky as I darted though the secret passages of San Francisco.  I hit traffic on the 101 approaching the Golden Gate Bridge.  I had decided to cross the bridge and have a late lunch in Sausalito.  It seemed like that was everyone's plan.  

Since I arrived in San Francisco I have been astonished by the perpetual fog blanketing the city.  I've never seen anything like it.  The fog greeted me last night, I woke up in it this morning, and the sun only came out for an hour or two during the game.  I couldn't even see the top of Golden Gate Bridge when I finally crossed it.

Over the bridge I didn't know exactly where I was going so I just drove around the coast of Richardson Bay all the way to the San Francisco Yacht Club in Belvedere Cove.  I busted a u-turn at the Yacht Club as a woman walked her toy poodle inside.  I pulled over to take a photo, it amazed me that I was in heavy fog five minutes ago and now it was bright and sunny a couple of miles away.

View from SF Yacht Club

Heading back towards the bridge I pulled off the 101 at Donahue st and went into a Bait Shop and found the Davy Jones Deli.  The deli was closed but there was self-serve sandwiches to-go.  I grabbed one for now and one for later.  I ate in the car by a row of boathouses and watched the fog engulf San Francisco.  

After I crossed back over the Golden Gate I spotted Alcatraz through the fog.  It made me think of the classic Clint Eastwood movie Escape from Alcatraz.  My favorite line in the movie is when Eastwood needs an extra spoon to dig through the wall so he approaches an unsuspecting prison guard in the dining hall and sneakily takes and extra spoon after he cooly delivers the line "hey guard, this spoon looks like it's been sticking in someone's ass, any chance of me getting a new one?"

Alcatraz

The San Francisco streets have some incredibly steep hills.  I drove up Divisadero and thought - one bad bounce off the backboard and a roll down the end of the driveway and your basketball is gone forever, forget about it.  I wondered why people would build a city on steep hills covered in fog.  

I was impressed with the intensity of the fog but I don't like my mind or my city being foggy.  Listening to Creep in a T Shirt by Portugal. The Man has been making a lot of sense to me, I guess traveling alone in the summer will do that.  The hip hop song I've listened to the most is Only God Can Judge Me by 2Pac.  Every time Silver, Blue, and Gold by Bad Company comes on I like it more and more.  And as I was in the homestretch of my short drive back this evening I was banging on the steering wheel to Sometime Around Midnight by Airborne Toxic Event.  I love the lines "and when your friends say what is it/you look like you've seen a ghost".         

Here was my view of the famous hill on Lombard st.  The fact there is a Mini Cooper directly in view is so San Francisco.

I have a long drive tomorrow so I have to get a good rest in this ghostly fog.  The San Francisco fog has to be seen to be believed, but, also, believed to be seen.