Politics These Days

I have a TV set in the apartment, but it has never been turned on for as long as I've had it.  It was given to me by a friend here who has moved back to his place in southern California.  It's one of those older sets that is not compatible with digital, and I don't feel like going somewhere to get an antenna and converter box.  Nor do I feel like signing up for cable.

The only TV that I watch is if I get the wild hare to go to a bar in a casino to take in some football (it happens once in a while), and the TV monitors in the commissary where I am employed.  One monitor is tuned to Fox News and the other ESPN.  A group of us will gather in the commissary in front of the monitor that's on Fox, where the sound is suppressed but closed caption is activated.  I follow the political news both on this monitor and online using a variety of sources, and it seems as if the Presidential campaigns are consuming 50% of the news bandwidth.

In one way, following the politics is interesting, but in another way, it's disgusting.  There's an entertainment factor in what Donald Trump is saying, and also in Joe Biden trying to create the appearance that he's in personal agony over whether or not to run for President.  Hillary Clinton for a long time was presumed frontrunner and even inevitable in some circles within Organized Media, but a few weeks back she could only draw a crowd of 200 when she was here in North Las Vegas.  That told me that her campaign was in serious trouble then, and I think it's in serious trouble now.

Likewise, I'm thinking that the Jeb Bush campaign is in serious trouble as well.  He hasn't staked out policy positions that are alternative to what Hillary is proposing, and half of the country hates him anyway while the other half of the country hates Hillary.  It's like watching the Super Bowl and hoping that both teams are somehow going to lose.  While the Super Bowl will provide a halftime show that you might find half as enjoyable as constant diarrhea, it won't provide you other teams.  Political campaigns though can and do provide entertainment that you just can't help but stare at, and we are getting that from The Donald.

I still am not convinced that Donald Trump is for real.  He is saying things that most of the other candidates won't touch, and I think that's why he's doing well in the polls.  People are fed up with both parties and they're quite naturally going to flock to someone who gives both of them a little hell.  That's what got Ross Perot his attention, and that I think explains why Mr. Trump is doing well.  The difference at this point in time is, and I'll repeat, at this point in time.........Donald Trump just might really want the big chair while Ross Perot sabotaged himself since he feared that he might win.

If the momentum of The Donald continues, he just might expose the Republican National Committee for what they really are:  an elite group obsessed with the acquisition of power, which is of course an accurate description for the Democratic National Committee.  The RNC is not going to stand for someone not in their inner circle grabbing the brass ring.  And this brings up a couple of questions.

Will the RNC abolish the primaries, and have the nominee selected by the party bosses?  Likely not likely.  Their credibility is already in the trashcan but I don't think they're prepared to have their credibility taken to the landfill at this point in time. 

That leaves one more question.

Will the RNC somehow "broker" the convention, and overturn the will of their electorate should Donald Trump have the majority of delegates?

Time will tell.

How Do You Know They're For Real?

I went Downtown today for the purposes of people-watching and relaxation.  I could have taken a drive to Goldfield or St. George or someplace, but I'm on the road next weekend so I wasn't going to do that today.  Sometimes I enjoy Downtown and other times I don't.  I guess I didn't want to get "apartment fever" today, so I made the drive.

I have been there often enough to where I recognize the regular weirdos and street performers.  I've seen several of the same panhandlers over and over.......one notable one being a lady who had stage 4 cancer when I saw her there last year, and who now has stage 3 cancer according to her sign that she updated three months ago.  I can pick out the hucksters and scam artists who are hawking time-shares.  King Solomon wrote some several centuries ago that "there is nothing new under the sun" and that would certainly apply to the Fremont Street Experience.

Yet today, I saw something that wasn't there before.  There were three young men standing at a table, holding signs that were asking for donations to fight child sex-trafficking in Las Vegas.  While I was sipping a Dos Equis at the outside bar in front of the Golden Nugget, I observed several tourists donating money to these men.  No doubt that the tourists felt good about doing "something" to fight this problem, although as a regular reader of the Las Vegas Review-Journal I haven't seen any articles about the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department cracking down on the illegal sex trade.....until two days ago.  I know those young man weren't out there last Saturday because I met a good friend of mine at that very same bar.  And as I'm watching these tourists hand over money to these young men, I couldn't help but ask myself a question:  how do I know that these guys are for real?

My experience along Fremont Street is that no one who is trying to get money away from you is your friend.  No one is using honest means to get that money from you.  This would of course, exclude those kiosks selling souvenirs, but all up and down that corridor are people holding cardboard signs claiming to be victims of circumstance of one kind or another.  I have seen them there for eight months running now.  And now I'm seeing what purports to be a legitimate operation.  But again, the question remains, how do I know that these guys are for real?

I'm going to make one thing clear here.  No one who is in their right mind is in favor of child trafficking.  Those who traffic and those who use the children are very sick people who belong chained together in a correctional facility and using sledgehammers to convert boulders into talcum powder with no hope of parole.

However...........in case you haven't heard me say this, or read this previously, I'm going to repeat an observation that I frequently make about Las Vegas:

Half this town is out to cheat the other half of town!

And odds are, no pun intended, the percentage of people who are not visitors to Fremont Street who are out to cheat you is significantly higher than 50%.  I'd venture to say that it's somewhere up around 85%.  It's very possible that these guys I saw for the first time are part of that 15%, but how do I know that?

They are soliciting donations in a public area.  Although solicitations of this kind in and of itself are legal, you don't know what happens to that money once you part with it.  There is no way of verifying that your donations are going to the cause you want to help.  They could be passing out literature and not accepting donations, but what they're doing here is asking for donations and then giving you the literature.  The literature itself may or may not be 100% true, and I'm not even sure that is possible to quantify the dollar amount or number of people involved in child trafficking in the first place.  Those who do it don't file reports to the government or collect sales tax.  Those who are victims are intimidated into remaining victims.  And those sick people who use the victims don't go around telling their friends and neighbors what they really like to do on their time off.

I really hate to be skeptical about these guys. 

Sadly I am, and more so, considering where I am currently living.

Another Sunday Evening in Las Vegas

I haven't been posting a whole lot since I haven't felt like I had anything worthwhile to say.  And now I'm realizing that I ought to get those Rhyolite and Goldfield pictures up here sometime, which would need a block of time on a weekend to do it.  Yes, I could have done it this weekend, but yesterday morning was spent on an important matter and yesterday afternoon I found myself wanting to relax and take stock of things.

Today's been pretty quiet.  I did go for a short drive after church, after which I stopped off at a supermarket to get things for the evening meal.  I haven't decided exactly what to have but I'll make my mind up shortly after logging off.

I have been catching up on a lot of reading.  A friend of mine at work loaned me a Clive Cussler novel, and I finished it yesterday.  It took a while for the story to get going, and some of the dialog got a little cheesy, but I found myself entertained, and what surprised me was that he was able to get a good story across without any profanity.  Not even a "hell" or a "damn".  I'm now thinking of looking for more of his titles at the thrift store.  Right now I've returned to reading the James Bond novels that Ian Fleming wrote.  Or rather, re-reading them.  I think Fleming was one gifted writer.

On the home front, I'll be in Tucson, via road, for Labor Day weekend, and I'll be flying down later in September.  The flights haven't been booked yet but I'm looking forward to going.  I'm not sure if we'll be catching The Smithereens in Sahuarita.  I should write Jim Babjak to let him know what's happening.

Work-wise, it's a bit on the dynamic side right now.  We've had some turnover in personnel so assignments have changed.  I'm picking up work on satellite ground stations in addition to my work on life support systems.  It's good experience.  I can't complain about what they're giving me to do. 

As for Las Vegas......there are times when I don't like being inside of an apartment.  Come to think of it, that's most of the time these days.  A friend of mine here is in the same boat as I am in:  wife, house and family are in a different state.  We went out to dinner Thursday night at a locals casino here, and we were hanging around Downtown yesterday for part of the afternoon.  It actually turned out to be a decent Downtown visit:  the panhandlers were leaving the tourists alone!  The people watching was good too.

So it's a quiet Sunday evening here, and time for reflection.  I figure on doing some light reading after supper, which I think will be home made chili.  Chili is therapeutic and I like making it, but the high point will be talking to Sheila before going to bed.

I miss her, and it's hard at times.

But we'll survive.

Fast Food and Politics

You have no doubt seen tantalizing photos from the fast food industry promoting their products.  The hamburgers are always plump and juicy.  The hamburger is perfectly stacked.  The ingredients are obvious in the picture:  the tomatoes are red, the pickles can be seen, and the sauce never drips over the side.  Everything is perfect; all is well with the world.

But when you buy that hamburger, what you get isn't what they advertised.  The product is unbelievably sloppy.  The sauce drips over the side.  The bun has been manhandled and often the imprint of a hand can be seen in the surface.  The onions are falling out of the center.  The meat patties are not stacked; sometimes they appear to have smashed together so that the slice of cheese between them can be forced to ooze out.

Not clear yet?  Take a look at this.

This is analogous to a political campaign.  The candidate is much like the advertised image of a fast food product.  Once elected, the candidate transforms into the reality of a fast food product. 

Last I heard, we have 23 candidates for President between the two parties.  It's possible that out of the 23 we have two, maybe three of them, that do not fit this fast food analogy.  But will even one of those two or three survive the primary process?

Odds are, it's going to be a contest between the two parties to give us a choice between two nominees who the are most unqualified.  There might not even be half a dime's worth of difference between the nominees.

I'm tired of this "lesser of two evils" decision that I'm asked to make every four years.

I wish I was wrong about this.

More so than my wishing I was wrong about what half the people in Las Vegas are up to.

Some Random Observations

Anyone who hangs around me long enough is eventually going to hear a frequent observation about Las Vegas.  "Half this town is out to cheat the other half of town!"  I've been saying that at work and I've said it often enough that some of my co-workers are saying it too. 

I have one big problem with that observation:  no one's been able to prove me wrong.

* * * * * * *

It isn't the casinos who are out to cheat you here. They don't need to.  The mathematics are on their side.

Yet there is no shortage of visitors who all believe that they have this "system", that they are somehow going to pull a fast one on the casinos and walk away with enough to buy a Ferrari or Maserati.

When they find themselves taken to the cleaners, they might accuse the casinos of being in that half of town that cheats, but they're wrong.

It's the time-share salesmen who hang around in casinos who are doing the cheating.  And mechanics, dentists, entertainment brokers, and half of the rest of town.  (I do know one honest mechanic here; I should mention him sometime).

* * * * * *

There seems to be an established process here for how a lot of the restaurants work:  no matter how busy the place is, or how many people are waiting in line, there is only one cook. 

If you're in a family of four and all of you order the same thing on the menu, the cook will simply prepare the meals one at a time.  For example, let's say that all four family members order hamburger and fries.

First the cook cooks one hamburger.  Then, he fries up one, and only one batch of French fries.  The waitress then carries it out to the family.  Then the cook cooks the second hamburger.  Like with the first, he will not simultaneously cook the fries with the burger.  He just won't do it.  Likewise with the third and fourth orders.  All items have to be cooked one at a time. 

Will it ever occur to the cook to cook all four orders at once?

I don't think so.

I've just never seen it done that way here.  I'm wondering if there's a Clark County ordinance forbidding that practice.

* * * * * * *

There are also a lot of panhandlers here, and as of late they are getting aggressive.  I was meeting a local friend for breakfast Downtown a couple of Saturdays ago, and we went inside the Mermaids casino for a bit.

A panhandler actually came inside the casino to hit me up for money.

Downtown panhandling became such a problem that the City of Las Vegas cracked down in mid 2014.  The panhandlers could hold up a cardboard sign, but they could not vocally ask you for money.  On my last few visits, some of them started testing the boundaries.  And now they're coming inside the casinos to ask you for money.

* * * * * * *

I had thought for a few days that my next blog entry was going to be about The Donald and the noise he's been making in his campaign for the Presidency.  He's saying a lot of things that resonate with a lot of people, and the Establishment Republicans are terrified of him.  I personally find Establishment Republicans to be vile and disgusting, and if they're upset about Donald Trump then that's a good thing.

But I don't know what to make of The Donald.  Is he for real?  Where was he on illegal immigration ten years ago?  I don't remember him beating that drum back then. 

Sure, I'd rather have him than Hillary "What Difference Does it Make?" Clinton, or former Maryland Governor Martin "Give Me Your Guns" O'Malley........not to mention Elizabeth "I Have High Cheekbones" Warren of Massachusetts. 

But my feeling is that I really don't know who he is.

 

* * * * * * *

That's going to be it.

The Smithereens Play Las Vegas!

A little over a week ago, when I was checking out what was scheduled for Fremont Street (Downtown), I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the Smithereens were going to play a free concert!  It was to be at the same location where I saw BTO several years ago, and I decided to go Downtown last Saturday to go check it out.  I arrived in the morning, and figured that they and the other bands would be doing their soundchecks around 2ish in the afternoon.

I was correct, and I was in an area where I could see the back entrance of the stage when Smithereens guitarist Jim Babjak happened to come up the ramp, with his guitar slung in a soft case on his back.  He said hi to me, and I returned the greeting, and then said "White Castle Blues!"  He paused and smiled.

"White Castle Blues" is an obscure Smithereens song that he co-wrote several years ago, which was a bonus track on their first full length CD (it did not make the vinyl).  I've always liked that song.  It's a bit out of the Smithereens mold; with him doing the vocal on it and having fun with it.  He then remarked, "you have one here in Vegas, don't you?"  I said we did, but it's on the Strip, and since we locals don't go to the Strip I had not been to it yet.  We chatted some more for a few moments, and then he went on to proceed with the soundcheck.  The bass player, Severo "The Thrilla" Jornacion was already there, and drummer Dennis Diken and singer/rhythm guitarist Pat DiNizio (also the frontman for the group) joined him shortly thereafter.

Once Jimmy got his guitar plugged in and verified that it was in tune, he treated me to a short burst of "White Castle Blues".  Then the other members soundchecked their instruments, and they also played a short burst of "Only A Memory" to get the vocals all balanced out.

After that I got to chat with Pat DiNizio some, and with Jim.  There were a few other fans there.  I had to explain that this was my first time seeing them although I'd been following them since 1988.  It was simply a matter of them and me being in the same town at the same time.  In my San Jose years I would be away on a business trip when they came through.  That was how it is, and they wanted to know if I was going to stick around for the show.  I said I would, even if it was past my normal bedtime.  They would be taking the stage shortly after 9:00 PM and would play a 50 minute set. 

Pat obliged my request to pose for a photo with him.  He did ask me not to post this on the internet, and out of respect for that wish I won't post it here, but he was OK with me emailing it to Sheila.  They went back to an RV were they were presumably going to rest up some.  Jim said he needed to get out of the heat, but would see me again later on.

Through an interesting sequence of events, when I was back there at 7ish, one of the fans from another of the bands who had seen me at the soundcheck gave me the VIP wristband so that I could be in the section closest to the stage.  I went in, and a security guard came up to me.  I thought I was going to be asked to leave, but he was there to tell me all three band members were doing a meet and greet backstage, and if I wanted to meet them then go ahead and go back.

I felt bad that I didn't have anything for the Smithereens to sign, but Jimmy said "hang on.  I've got a picture in my guitar case I can give you."  He returned five minutes later.  The Thrilla jokingly gave me a hard time for not having a silver sharpie on me, but that I could purchase one.  I asked him how much, and he said "five thousand dollars!".  It was either Jim or Pat who said "don't listen to him", and I came away with an autographed color photo of the band.

They took the stage at about 9:10 PM.  In that short of a set, they obviously couldn't have played all the songs that they wanted to play, but they did play their well known tunes, and blended one of them with a medley by using a couple of songs from The Who.  It was one excellent show, and afterwards they signed autographs and CDs at a booth on the opposite side of the Fremont Street corridor.  They had CDs on sale too.  I bought one of a live show that I didn't have, and one from Jim Babjak's side project.  Jim personalized it for me, and Dennis signed that one as well since he had played on it.  We chatted some more, with me indicating that I would try to catch them in Arizona later this year.

After I got home all full of adrenaline, I visited their websites, and discovered that Jimmy had his email address up there, so I wrote him to thank him again for providing me that picture, and for a great show.  I logged off and tried to get some sleep after that.

It wasn't until the next morning that I saw his reply.  He wrote me back from his hotel room shortly after midnight using his iPhone!  Now how cool is that?!  I plan to write him again shortly, but I want to give his CD a second listen before I do.

They play in Sahuarita AZ on Friday, the 11th of September.  Plane fares at this time look doable but I can't commit to this until early August.  I'll have to burn a vacation day and fly down there the night before, but I'd like to have Sheila with me the next time I see them, and this is so far the best way to make that happen.

As stated previously, Pat asked me not to post the photo of us together, but I have one from the soundcheck I can share with you.

The Month That Was

May is winding down to an end here.  It's been one of the better months.  Sheila flew up here on the evening of the 5th, and on the next day we were out on the road first thing in the morning.  We drove up to Reno on US95, retracing some steps that I had done many years ago.  Not much has changed in that stretch between Las Vegas and Walker Lake, which I last saw in '93. 

We stopped off at the "Area 51 Alien Center" in Amargosa Valley, which has an interesting souvenir shop.  I had been up there in early March and I wanted Sheila to see it.  After she bought some goodies for the kids, we continued on, stopping again in Rhyolite.

Rhyolite is the very first ghost town that I have ever visited.  I was disappointed when I saw it the first time long ago, when I saw those ghost statues near the first building you see.  I couldn't remember if the grotesque statue purporting to be a nude blonde was there back then........it is now, and I hope the model was able to sue for damages.  This time around we spent a half hour exploring the ruins and taking lots of pictures, and I enjoyed it much much better.

Our next stop was Goldfield, the county seat of Esmeralda County.  Esmeralda per the latest figures has some 780 or 820 residents, and 268 of them are said to be living in Goldfield.  The diner we stopped at in 1993 was still there and my recollection is that you could have anything you wanted on the menu, as long as it was chili (and not bad chili either).  About half the buildings, maybe more, have long since been abandoned, and a few of them are in the state of restoration.  The County Courthouse was along the main drag and on the other side of the fence I noticed inmates playing basketball, though the chain link fence had slats in them so that you wouldn't have known they were there unless you really looked.

Upon Tonopah, barely inside Nye County, we encountered thunder.  Yep....and some rain, but not a lot of it.  More rain was had when US95 put us back into Esmeralda County and it was in short sessions of sprinkles.  I didn't remember Walker Lake being that huge.  After Walker Lake, it was uncharted road for us all the way up to Fallon, which I had never been to before.  We liked Fallon and we are now considering that as a retirement venue.  An hour or so later, we arrived at the Siena Hotel in Reno, where we stayed for a couple of days.

The Siena wasn't there the last time I had been in Reno, and that was in 1997.  It was modern and the staff professional.  However, in the parking lot there was a panhandler, and some cars were broken into overnight on our last night there.  We weren't hit, but for some reason those in the row closest to the hotel were.  The telltale signs of window glass told me that five or six had been hit.  Also, there isn't much casino floor security in the Siena as that I was accosted by a panhandler in the men's room.  I didn't say a word, and couldn't find a security officer to have the mendicant ejected.

The next day it was off to San Jose to see my parents, Mark and his wife, and Chip and his family.  After a Mother's Day lunch we were on the road and were able to make it back to Vegas late that Sunday evening.  Monday we visited the Luxor since Sheila wanted to see that, and we hung around Downtown after that.  She flew home Tuesday afternoon, and vacation was over the next morning.

For the Memorial Day weekend, I was back in Tucson for a short visit.  There was more time with our grandchild, and time of course with the cats, who realized that Daddy was home and that meant one more person to boss around.  Oh, they were nice about it, wanting all sorts of love and attention, in addition to a fully stocked food dish. 

Anyway, this was a good month, and it is ending on a hot note.  Las Vegas hit triple digits this weekend.  Good thing all those years in Tucson acclimated me to heat. 

One of my projects should be to post photos of Rhyolite and Goldfield.  It might take two or three postings for both.  So, I guess I'd better get busy and get those pictures on my computer, and resized for blogging.

That's all for now.

Don't forget to pet a dog or a cat!