Tell the Night
Saw The Cave Singers last Thursday at Rickshaw Stop. It was so beautiful - so cathartic - that afterwards, the only appropriate thing was to walk the 45-minute trek home in the rain, stopping only to get a raspberry Macaroon at the bakery on Van Ness. Even with an umbrella and my old green North Face, I was soaked by the time I got back.
Some of my greatest epiphanies come from stumbling along like this, the proverbial fool in the rain, if you may. You know what I realized that night? I'm not going to tell you.
But I will tell you I'm going to Vegas Wednesday night, the first time I've flown in six-and-a-half years. I'll be doing this without the aid of modern medicine, although I may break down and have a drink if I get to SFO early enough. The last time I flew was on a return trip from Vegas. This was in March 2001. I was sandwiched between two heavy-set Hawaiian women, both of whom monopolized the available arm-wrests, while we circled for hours, waiting for the fog to clear in Oakland so we could land. We ended up being re-routed to Sacramento and landing there, but didn't exit. We waited for another hour on the runway. It sucked.
When one of the ladies fell asleep, the other confided that she had won $27,000 on slots at Circus Circus, but didn't want her companion to know. She whispered this after she bought me a cocktail. They were best friends, had been for 35-years, but she was afraid their dynamic would change if she knew how much the payout was for. I was a perfect stranger, a neurotic mess for that matter after being up for 3 days betting on the first round of the NCAA Tourney, and here she was breaking down as she told me why she couldn't trust what, for all purposes anyway, was her own family. The whole thing saddened me, almost as much as the woman playing Wheel of Fortune at the airport, the one who lost all her money to that annoying jingle and yet kept playing. Desperation like that, it gets me every time.
When people think of the strip they imagine swanky clubs and hipsters yelling "Vegas baby, yeah!" out of taxi windows. They think of the Palms and the Hard Rock.
I imagine these folks.
Some of my greatest epiphanies come from stumbling along like this, the proverbial fool in the rain, if you may. You know what I realized that night? I'm not going to tell you.
But I will tell you I'm going to Vegas Wednesday night, the first time I've flown in six-and-a-half years. I'll be doing this without the aid of modern medicine, although I may break down and have a drink if I get to SFO early enough. The last time I flew was on a return trip from Vegas. This was in March 2001. I was sandwiched between two heavy-set Hawaiian women, both of whom monopolized the available arm-wrests, while we circled for hours, waiting for the fog to clear in Oakland so we could land. We ended up being re-routed to Sacramento and landing there, but didn't exit. We waited for another hour on the runway. It sucked.
When one of the ladies fell asleep, the other confided that she had won $27,000 on slots at Circus Circus, but didn't want her companion to know. She whispered this after she bought me a cocktail. They were best friends, had been for 35-years, but she was afraid their dynamic would change if she knew how much the payout was for. I was a perfect stranger, a neurotic mess for that matter after being up for 3 days betting on the first round of the NCAA Tourney, and here she was breaking down as she told me why she couldn't trust what, for all purposes anyway, was her own family. The whole thing saddened me, almost as much as the woman playing Wheel of Fortune at the airport, the one who lost all her money to that annoying jingle and yet kept playing. Desperation like that, it gets me every time.
When people think of the strip they imagine swanky clubs and hipsters yelling "Vegas baby, yeah!" out of taxi windows. They think of the Palms and the Hard Rock.
I imagine these folks.
I vowed never to fly again after reading a biography on Stanley Kubrick. This was a month after we landed safely. It sounded like a reasonable stand to take at the time, although I've missed some cool opportunities along the way.
Then the other night I got a voicemail from a dear friend. She said things were going really well for her, for the first time in forever, and she wished that she could share it with me. She said she missed talking to me, that she understood I was probably working on something important but she just wanted to hear my voice. The way she said it was so sincere, so full of melancholy, so real, that without thinking, I said okay. I'll come.
So here goes.
Then the other night I got a voicemail from a dear friend. She said things were going really well for her, for the first time in forever, and she wished that she could share it with me. She said she missed talking to me, that she understood I was probably working on something important but she just wanted to hear my voice. The way she said it was so sincere, so full of melancholy, so real, that without thinking, I said okay. I'll come.
So here goes.
posted by Rob Simons at 7:46 PM
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