While there were no males or rodents directly involved in the making of this story, the fact is that my plans went awry and it seems that tradition at least suggests that these two species might have had something to do with that. Which makes me wonder whether a bitter woman invented that saying and what came first - the bitter woman or the bad man? Musings for another day.
In the meantime, I write this to you from the glorious city of Las Vegas. It wasn’t exactly in my plans and I didn’t come by the directest route so let me explain how it all came to be.
Those who know my plans might recall that at some point I was going to get all Hemmingway and find a writing retreat that spoke to my soul (hopefully without the sad alcoholic tendencies that plagued Mr H). My soul was crying out rather loudly for the Napa Valley - the lovely town of St Helena to be precise. The last time I was there (October 2010) I had an overwhelming urge to stay. I wasn’t able to at the time but I vowed to come back and explore that feeling and that need and put to rest the question of whether it was divine inspiration or indigestion. The jury is out, I’m afraid.
For one thing, the feeling of indigestion persists. Every time I drive into St Helena I get an overwhelming, physical reaction. My heart starts to race, my breathing becomes rapid, my senses narrow and yet become all encompassing. If I didn’t know better, I’d think I was about to take off and fly. Unfortunately, either due to my bad planning or cosmic forces, I have not been able to find a place to stay that suits my purposes so my month in the Napa writing and trying to resolve the strange physical symptoms has turned into a month of road trips and unexpected travels instead.
Not that I’m complaining - for as every door closes, another opens (or whatever that cliche is - I am writing this late at night after a couple of champagnes and cliches are so much easier than “real” words).
Around the middle of the month, I discovered that one of my all-time favourite stars was performing in Las Vegas. Seeing this performer was on my bucket list although, alongside meeting Nelson Mandela, it was a bit more of a wishful thought than a well considered plan for he (the star, not Mandela) had retired almost 10 years ago, vowing to never perform again. Excellent news - he changed his mind. It turned out he was performing in Vegas so having the luxury of time and foiled plans, I drove 10 hours or so from Northern California to Las Vegas to see him play. Have you guessed who it is yet? To be fair, I haven’t left many clues. He wears a hat. He is a country singer. He has friends in low places. He is none other than the legendary, the fabulous, the obscenely charming and talented, Mr Garth Brooks. Partly because I’m lazy and partly because I already captured my immediate concert thoughts, I’ll insert some paragraphs I wrote to a fellow GB fan:
“The American Indians have a saying - "it is a good day to die". Normally I disagree with them because I think life beats the alternative. But today, if I died, I would not die unhappy.
Garth performed at the Encore Theatre in the Wynn Casino Resort Complex. It is a relatively small theatre, so no surprises that it was a sold out show. There was no band - just him and a guitar. To say he delivered beyond expectations is like suggesting that Hurricane Katrina was an asthmatic wheeze by a mosquito.
You would have wept. I certainly did. A lot. I had Panda mascara eyes afterwards.
He opened with "Much too young (to feel this damn old)" which was a song off his first album (as you know, No Fences). Then he took us back to 1962 where it all began in Oklahoma and took us through a musical journey of his life. He was funny, witty, earthy, honest, poignant and heartfelt. He told us stories of his parents and his upbringing as well as his musical career. Dad was straight down the line - ex-military, 2-job holding, give no quarter. Haggard and Jones were music as far as he was concerned (the two together formed a holy cross). Which was great for Garth except that their themes were a bit adult - one sang about prison all the time, the other sang about love so intense there was always a death involved. Mum was (according to his gesture on stage) about 2 feet tall and "80 pounds when soaking wet, 75 pounds of which was in her right foot". While dad was straight down the line with his musical tastes, mum loved everything else.
GB took us on a musical odyssey through his childhood and through the years. He sang the songs of Haggard and Jones, Simon and Garfunkle, the Beatles, Marvin Gaye, Ottis Redding, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Don McLean, George Strait, Bob Seger, Billie Joel, Elton John, James Taylor, Randy Travis, Bob Dylan and the list goes on. He wove a story around the evolution of music -
* in the 60s, songs didn't get finished (think Simon and Garfunkle and all the la-di-das and do-do-dos that featured in their tunes, even the Beatles gave in to the trend with Hey Jude)
* in the 70s, songs got weird lyrics (think about the lyrics to American Pie, anything by Elton John etc)
* in the 80s, singers told youth about stuff they didn't talk about in church (think Bob Seger's Night Moves) but there was creep from other decades (Billie Joel - Piano man - la-di-da-di-di-da....)
Then we got into a more in-depth coverage of Garth's own music. We heard Shameless, Thunder Rolls (with concert version final verse), If tomorrow never comes, Unanswered Prayers and many other favourites. At the point of when he would have gone off for an encore, he instead asked for house lights to come on and asked for requests. As you'd expect, I was on my feet and doing Donkey jumps before he finished his sentence. When the lights came up, he pointed to me and asked whether I had a question or request. Being a gentleman of manners, he first asked for an introduction and where I was from. So, "Miss Ania", he asked, "what is it you'd like to ask?" So what else could I ask for but "The Dance"? He sang, I cried again (no mascara by this point) and then as a grand finale, he asked everyone to stand and we collectively sung "Friends in low places".
2 hours of one man and a guitar, spanning 50 years of music. It was quite a show. The man is a legend. I hope he goes back on tour because he really does have an extraordinary gift. Oh, and he knew where Adelaide was and said he enjoyed giving a show there - then he said he hoped the people of his country gave me as good an experience to me as he was given in Australia.”
That was a tough gig to beat but then I spent a couple of days with a new-found muso friend in Ventura, California, who, while of a different genre to GB, is pretty good nonetheless. Amongst other places visited: Venice Beach. Right-o. Just quietly - weirdsville. If you’re missing a weird relative or friend, they are probably at Venice Beach. It could be the most interesting place for people watching ever imagined. I think that if Johnny Depp’s mind was a city beach, it would probably be Venice, LA. Whatever you conjure up as a result of my words, rest assured it won’t come close to reality. Add more unexpected. Throw in a lot of random. Shake it about with severe mentals. That’s closer.
I then drove all the way back to Northern California just to find that my excellent Danish friends, met by 2 degrees of separation in Rio, Brazil, were now down the road in San Francisco. Since I love reunions more than farewells, I suggested we meet up. It took about 0.333 seconds for them to twist my arm into another Vegas road trip. So after a detour via San Jose to meet a long separate friend of theirs (another QT on the side, boy did that boy have some stories - buy me a bottle or five and I’ll tell you one day....) we ended up in Vegas. It has been their first time, my third.
Sometimes after I visit a place I love several times, I get a little less enthusiastic about the stuff that becomes ordinary. Not that I really want to take anything for granted but you know what it’s like, right? Once you’ve seen the big reveal, it looses its punch a little. While Vegas always manages a solid uppercut, it has been fun watching it through their eyes. Their most oft repeated expression “this place is sick!!!” (NB for language ARs - sick as in good, not ill.) While normally I disapprove of this kind of earthy street slang, I think they may have a point. My favourite way of describing Vegas to the uninitiated is “it’s an abomination but it’s just so much darn fun!!!” I guess that’s pretty much “sick”.
Needless to say, it’s a gambler’s paradise. If you want ‘girls in 20 minutes’ or indeed if you’d like to eat dinner while staring at someone else’s through their intimate organs, this is also the place for you. Neither are my thing and yet I still manage to have a great time.
- Shows - dozens to choose from (we saw Cirque du Soleil’s “Elvis”).
- Sensory explosions - lights, lights, lights, water fountains, bells, whistles, free outside shows several times a night (think Bellagio water fountain, Mirage volcano show, Treasure Island “Sirens of TI” featuring scantily clad sea-witches luring pirates to the destruction of their ship)
- Shopping (not just super-duper high end stuff galore (goes without saying) but some of the best premium outlets in the US - it’s hard not to enter a state of sheer frenzy)
- Fabulous hotels with every possible whim ready to be met (the hotels vie fiercely for the honour of best features)
- Architecture - you can pretty much see the world without leaving Vegas (there is a New York skyline with full-scale reproduction streets indoors, a pyramid and sphinx, an Eiffel tower, Venetian canals with a replica of St Mark’s square indoors but under a painted sky, a Moroccan Bazaar complete with hourly desert storm, the Fontana di Trevi and several other Roman landmarks and a Disney Castle, to name but a few)
- Food and alcohol - "a plethora of choices" just doesn’t even begin to give you an idea of the scale of what’s available (one of the best things about the US is always being able to order off-menu. Want endangered eagle soup and they don’t have it? No problem, ask and they’ll find a solution)
Gosh, I could go on. Until you’ve seen Vegas, you really haven’t seen the heights to which humanity can climb.....or sink. Someone once said to me that the beauty of America is that it has the best of everything and the worst of everything. I’ve always thought that to be a very accurate description of this country. Vegas captures that thought in a nutshell and then blows that MF into the most spectacular show on earth. Every night.
As an aside, whenever I think about how to solve human-kind’s sustainability challenges, I always think back to Vegas. If we can sort this place out, we’re home and hosed. At least that narrows the field of inquiry on the subject. My work here is done for now.
PS,
I forgot to add that between San Jose and Vegas, we stopped off for a night in Yosemite. Wow. From previous posts you'll know how gushy I get when it comes to natural beauty. I'm not even going to start for I wouldn't even begin to do it justice. Just do yourself a favour and go see it.
