I'm here on East Fremont Street in Las Vegas, far from the psychotic delusional frenzy of the "strip"/Las Vegas Blvd., the grand buffet at the Bellagio, the great pyramids of the Luxor, the understated, over the top "elegance" of the Wynn, here in a part of the city most visitors will never see, probably never want to see, and certainly the one the PR people don't want you to see, the skid row of LV, now that they've enticed you to come here to drown out the unpleasant realities of your own tedious life in the faux fantasy world of this city which is little more than Hell Disguised as a Clown, Disneyland with slot machines, or as Henry Miller observed so long ago, an "Air Conditioned Nightmare" in response to the absurdus americanus that became all that more obvious to him after his time in pre WW 2 Europe.
Here it's hot under a hard, unforgiving slate blue sky, the relentless predatory sun searching to reclaim the souls of the homeless and hopeless left to die amidst the rubble of faded glory that was once Las Vegas before it moved uptown and left them behind, lost, lonely, and desperate, cowering in the shadows of what once was, and will soon no longer be, driving them further into the desert and certain death.
The old, the sick, addled, addicted, the lame and infirmed, young men and women who dreamed and gambled away their dreams, sentenced to wither away in the gutted husks of old motels that still dot the strip of East Fremont Street, discarded and forgotten .
No people, no clouds, no hard luck stories, no shelter from sun. Not the way I would have left it if only I had more time, but we were needing to move on. As always, next time.
Pablo
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