If I wasn’t already a drinking man, I would seriously consider taking it up.

Man. I am bored.

The EM-50 Phantom Rambler has a worn out spindle. I’m not sure what that is exactly, but from the amount of time it is taking to get the part, I assume it is as easy as ordering a new motherboard for  a Knight Industries 2000 (K.I.T.T.)

They don’t just have them laying around in every godforsaken, podunk town, i.e. Barstow, CA.

Because of this, I am on foot. Which, when I think about it, is the same as saying that I remain seated. But, stationary. Walking is for Hobbits.

I have nothing to do all day but be alone with my thoughts. You have no idea how frightening this can be.  At least when I had wheels I could keep moving, putting distance between myself and any psychic residue my disturbing thoughts may have imprinted on the landscape.

So, I sit around wondering if 11:15 a.m. is too early to start drinking. Even if I claim my heart is with Trixie and, thus, on EST, soooo’yeah…still too early.

I met another stranded traveler. Can’t quite figure her out.  Her name is Jen. (pic related)

She is young, pretty, educated, well-spoken, has an outward personality, has excellent personal hygiene, and is demure, as is evidenced by the way we met. She informed me that she was going to use the disabled EM-50 Phantom Rambler as a privacy wall so she could use the water hose at the gas station to wash her hair.

Naturally, I respected her wish. But needed evidence that I can mind my own business and that I am not just making this up. So, I snuck up behind her and snapped a pic to prove to the haters that I have consideration for others…

Haha! I’m just kidding! She asked me to snap these pics for her Twitter thing. She even gave me permission to post these.

Everybody is a weirdo and she is certainly no exception. She has been living in her car for a couple of weeks now. It is broken down. With a flat tire. Actually, just a slow leak that eventually resulted in a flat tire. So, there she sits.

I figured this had to be some kind of con or something. She explained she wasn’t in a hurry because being on the road costs money.  Yeah. Who is she telling?

She set out from Boston in mid or late October and landed here.

I couldn’t figure out her angle, mainly because she never asked me for anything. See what I mean about being a weirdo?

She went on to explain that she has a Starbuck’s App so she can eat (Starbucks is crammed into the parking lot with the service station) but, I must’nt’ve heard her correctly because I don’t know what that means. Also, I wanted to use a word with two apostrophes.

I asked my mechanic what the story on her is. He replied, (and I shit you not), by screwing his face up quizzically and saying,

“Yeah…I don’t know. She’s been back there a couple of weeks now. Doesn’t bother anybody. She hasn’t come around and asked us for anything. I’ve been meaning to go talk to her but…huff…I just stay so busy all the time.”

Well, that cleared that up.

I gave her a half a bottle of whiskey even though she didn’t ask me for it – which is  what made it such a beautiful gesture on my part.

I am comfortable here. I take my meals at Mega Tommy’s Burger Joint on Historic Route 66…

It is good. Except for a soup called Menudo. I didn’t know what it was, but ordered it because of the name. I figured one taste would have me going all, “Mmmbop,  Scooby Dooby Dooby dup…Mmmbop…” or something. It didnt. It was awful. It was large clumps of chicken fat stewed in a bowl of chicken grease. Yiiish. (pic related)

Also, there is a tourist attraction across the street… (hang on, I’ll snap a pic)…

Yeah. You can’t really see it – Starbuck’s is blocking it.  This is the place with the McDonald’s that is faked to look like a converted railroad car. But the railroad car is just a storage area where they store, like extra straws and buns and stuff. I peeked

There is also a Panda Express and a butt load of gift shops that sell really awful dollar store crap.

Check out the wide stance on this guy.

There is a Wetzel’s Pretzels and a Subway. Everywhere is packed. Except this place…

I empathized. I, too, know what it is like to be bored out of one’s mind in Barstow.

I thought I would cut ol’ Jed a break and give him a good belly laugh to help the time pass. I rushed up to him and said,

“I hurried right over. Some guy told me you were running out of me!”

He slowly blinked at me without speaking.

Figuring he was, perhaps a bit slow, I explained it.

“You know…Seinfeld…’…the Jerk Store called. They’re running out of you.’…Jerk Store…Jerky Store…get it?”

He finally spoke, “Are you gonna buy something or…?”

Some people have no sense of humor.

This place has parking for about 45 buses. Tour buses go there. A lot. They have special lounges for the bus drivers.

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bus driver…

I can’t figure it out. I have explored this town in as much detail as my feet would carry me (about 100 yds in each direction) and can’t figure out the draw. Maybe this is a stop off en route to Vegas? I don’t think so. It is just weird if you ask me.

Speaking of weird, I miss me some Trixie!

And, not because I am always overdressed for almost every occasion.

The EM-50 Phantom Rambler has a sore foot or something.

I am in Barstow, CA, on Historic Route 66 sitting inside a McDonald’s made to look like it was converted out of an old railroad car.  It is fake. There is also a Panda Express in here. Meh.

Yesterday, the Rambler started making a horrible, scraping, screeching, twisting metal, grinding type noise. Whenever this happens, the first thing I do is listen for the traces of a beat to see if Trixie left the radio on one of her stations. It was reflexive. I haven’t seen her in some time.

I inspected my ride. About a half an hour in I remembered I don’t know anything about vehicle maintenance.

I did not take “Care & Maintenance of Magical Creatures” or whatever class it is they teach you about this stuff.

So, I have taken it to a mechanic. He said the exact same thing to me that the mechanic said to the penguin in one of my favorite jokes:

So, this penguin is road tripping across the country in his EM-50 Phantom Igloo, when it starts to make a funny noise.

He pulls over into a repair shop on Historic Route 66, whereupon the wrench turner tells him it will be about an hour before he can get to it.

The penguin spots a McDonald’s disguised as a converted railroad car and decides to go for some ice cream – it is a known fact that penguins love ice cream, by the way.

(Editor’s note: for the purpose of this tale I ask that you suspend disbelief and just go along with this next bit, even though it is farfetched. )

When he gets to the McDonald’s he finds that the soft serve machine is up and running…yes, you read that correctly…up and running…Showing no impulse control whatsoever, the penguin orders half a dozen vanilla cones.

But, because of his stubby little flippers for arms, he ends up smearing as much on his face as he gets in his mouth. Don’t care. Totally worth it.

The hour is almost up so he makes his way back across the street. The mechanic sees him coming and says to the penguin the same thing my mechanic just said to me,

“It looks like you blew a seal.”

I did my penguin imitation and reached up to wipe my mouth as I replied, “Nah, that’s just a little ice cream.”

Depending  on the cost and severity, this could spell the end of Tommy’s Ramblings.  Yikes, yo.

There is a famous mental puzzle in which the testee  (ha!) is challenged to come up with the precise height of a building using only a barometer.

Common answers range from stuff like: measuring atmospheric pressure at street level and from the roof to make the necessary calculations, to: dropping the device from the roof and timing it’s fall, to even: finding the building superintendent and saying, “Hey, I’ll give you this perfectly good barometer if you’ll tell me how tall your building is.”

I was reminded of this lateral thinking puzzle this morning because I was able to determine that the overnight, internal temperature of the EM-50 Phantom Rambler was exactly 33°F all because I  hadn’t showered for two straight days.

Allow me to walk you through it.

I slept, comfortably cocooned in my cocoon-like comforter, in the parking lot of a truck stop.

I decided to cheer myself up a notch (I was still bummed about not finding the buried treasure. I THINK I know where it is hidden, but am not willing to do what it would take to get there because I am not entirely SURE it is hidden there) by having a sit-down breakfast at the down-home-countrily-named Iron Skillet Diner that was part of the truck stop.

Being a considerate member of society I gave myself the sniff test before mixing with the public at an eatery. I raised one armpit to my nostrils, then the other. As expected, I smelled exactly the same as I do at every other moment of my life whether I am emerging from a swimming pool or a two week camping trip in a swamp. Not bad.

To play it safe, I reached into the storage area underneath my sleeping quarters and withdrew some Glide-On deodorant gel. (pic related)

Since I smell the same to me no matter what, this was just another of the many selfless things I do for people who I probably wouldn’t like if I ever took the time to get to know them.

I raised one arm, slid the stuff on, then did the other. As I began searching for an undershirt so to provide yet another layer of resistance,  my nerve endings woke up and registered the temperature of the viscous,  and vicious substance.

A single degree F colder and it would have frozen solid. Instead, it was reverse napalm.

Trying to wipe it off only served to smear it around and anger it. It got even colder.

You kids out there are too young to remember a dance called, “The Funky Chicken” so you probably can’t draw an image of what I looked like when I burst from the Rambler, wearing only my boxer/jockeys and tried desperately to accelerate evaporation by getting air to move across the surface of the stricken area as rapidly as I could.

Eventually, my body heat and deodorant were able to strike a compromise and I was allowed to slow the flapping of my wings.

I finished dressing and checked the label of the deodorant. Contains alcohol. So, it was probably even colder than I had calculated.

I ate breakfast then thought long and hard about a reason I would need cheering up now so that I would have an excuse to hit the Dunkin Donuts that was part of the travel complex. I settled on Existential Angst. You know, that feeling of dread that often accompanies total freedom and lack of responsibility in human beings.

Up til now I had just figured that that was a made-up ploy that the PTB had devised to keep us showing up at our miserable jobs for 40 or 50 years. But, if it would give me an excuse to score some donuts, I could take the hit.

Showing that I can make grand gestures when it comes to impulse control, I bought only HALF a dozen… (pic related)

The Xmas box makes them seem stale

It cost $6.13, making the old challenge of “dollars to donuts” a good deal for the other side now.

So, I am headed back west. As stated, I didn’t find the gold but, I did get the Rambler stuck in the mud on a dirt (when it’s dry) road in a remote part of an Indian reservation.

My first set of rescuers, tourists who were there to see the ruins (read that as “white folks”)  one of whom claimed to be from Greenbelt, Md oddly enough, really seemed to mean it when they told me that my predicament was “a damned shame” before speeding off as only a true homegirl would.

“Yep. They’re from the east coast.” I said out loud as I watched the back of their car recede into the distance.

The next set, Antonio, Gilbert and Ella (she never got out of the vehicle, but was inconvenienced by me nonetheless), locals, slogged into knee-deep mud and worked up a sweat in their exertion to get me on my way.  Either they are just good people who help out travelers in perilous distress or they were afraid I would make camp and ruin the neighborhood.  I sure as hell wasn’t getting off of the reservation by myself.

Where to now? I don’t know.  I’m missing my girl, but for now, miss her is all I can do.

Impulse control is for the weak-minded, and timid souls who can’t come to grips with the concept of their own mortality.

If you’ve ever found yourself wondering, “what this RED button does”, I can tell you the answers is ALWAYS, “There’s only one way to find out.”

Factoring in consequences is for chumps, fuddy-duddies, and buzzkills.

And, while it is true that I have frequently been hoist by my own petard, I maintain that these things might have happened to me anyway, even without the act of satisfying my curiosity.

I tell you all of this to help you better understand why,  abruptly,  I drove 500 miles in the wrong direction yesterday.

It was “wrong” only insomuch as,  it was east – back in the direction I had already been.

And,  while this means it will be,  at least, a 1000 round trip, to get me back to where I was (a heavy expenditure to someone on very limited funds) I stand firm in my decision. Sort of.

I am back in Farmington, NM. More on why in a moment.  But first,  here is what I saw.

A lot of nothingness. But, not just nothingness…BARREN nothingness (pic related)

If you have ever played the video game, “The Legend of Zelda;Twilight Princess” (you haven’t) then you will know two things:

1. The game is a lot manlier than the title seems to indicate.
2. This thing appeared in the canyon area of the game…

complete with spinner track

I saw Lake Powell. The pic does not capture the enormity. Big rigs driving by looked like big rigs for ants or something…

It’s a panorama. Click it.

From there, much more nothingness… (several spaces left blank to represent)

On the outskirts of Page, AZ I picked up a hitchhiker because, that’s how I roll (no consideration for consequences, that is).

He was a young Navajo fella. Mid 20s. And, I cannot emphasize this strongly enough…batshit crazy.

He mumbled to himself non-stop. When I asked where he was going, he replied, barely breaking his mumble, “Down the road.” Uhm…yeah. ok.

After several minutes he decided to get chatty with me. He introduced himself as, “Ginger.”

For those of you who have never been out west, among the Navajo,  the gene for red hair is really recessive. If Ginger was carrying it, he did not show outward evidence of it.

After making him repeat his name twice, I still wasn’t sure I had heard him correctly, so I said cautiously, “OK, well…GIN…GER… (pause while I waited for him to correct me. He did not)…what is it you do for a living?”

Utterly without shame, or pride for that matter, he replied, “Steal bells.”

My mind raced, exploring all the possible things I could have misheard and decided that he must work at an, as yet, unsmelled by me, tire factory making steel-belted radials. So, I said, “Steel belts?”

Ginger, as if talking to one who is a bit slow, repeated more clearly, “I steal bells.”

“Oh. Well, that’s nice.” I said when I couldn’t think of anything else.

Several more minutes of silence and then Ginger said, as if I would understand, “Porcupine Mesa.”

I gripped the wheel. My mind raced. After a minute I said, “OK. I give up. What is Porcupine Mesa?”

He said, “Where I live. We passed it a few minutes ago.” And, he continued to stare through the windshield, seemingly unconcerned that we were heading deeper into the desert.

Not in the market for a traveling companion, I cut a bootlegger’s turn and sped back.

When I dropped him off, he leaned back into the EM-50 Phantom Rambler,  reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a Rawling’s baseball.

“Are these made in China?” He asked me.

“Costa Rica.” I said, not really sure why I knew that.

“Where’s that?” He asked.

“Jurassic Park. ” I said.

He nodded and closed the door.

You cautious people never would have had that interaction. Just sayin.

Night fell. I continued on.

I went to the World Famous Four Corners Monument!

This is a granite slab on the ground in the spot where Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico meet! It was built to withstand earthquakes, blowing sand, harsh sunlight and time. You couldn’t damage this marker if you left it alone with a toddler – the most destructive force known to nature!

To be precise, I didn’t go there. I went 150′ from there. To “protect” it, they close the gate at 5 pm to deprive nighttime travelers of seeing it unsupervised.

So, now I am in Farmington, NM.  22°F.

I came here because of that rich kook, Forrest Fenn, that I mentioned in a previous post. He claims to have hidden a chest filled with gold and jewels somewhere in this area…

about 5,000,000 sq.mi.

He wrote a poem with nine “clues” that lead to the treasure.

What the clues lack in cryptic-ness, they more than make up for in vagueness.

Because of this, he has since released some follow up clues. For instance, early in the poem he makes reference to the chest being hidden below the “home of Brown”. He later released a statement saying that the gold isn’t associated with any structure because treasure hunters started digging up outhouses (yick). I shit you not.

For laughs, I read the poem. There is no way anyone could make sense of this. Then, something clicked and I thought, “I wonder if there is any chance it is hidden…”

As always, there is only one way to find out. I spun the Rambler around just to take a look.

Win or lose – I’ve already found my riches in the love of a good woman.

I went on a mission today to see nature in its highest form. I got the idea from when Trixie and I went to Pahrump the other day. We passed a street named Cimarron.

I asked her to look up the definition of the word while I drove. It is Spanish for unruly. Well, if they are going to start naming streets after my woman, then this deserves deeper investigation.

Cimarron is also the name of the most majestic of all creatures – the American Big Horn!

Before today the most exotic animal I had ever seen in the wild was probably an alligator. But, since they just loll about on the side of the road on the aptly named, “Alligator Alley” it wasn’t all that.

I saw a feral pig once in North Carolina.  Or, maybe it had just gotten out of his pen and was walking down the road. I couldn’t be sure.

I was determined to spot a cimarron in its natural stomping grounds so I went to Zion Canyon.

Zion, and the neighboring towns of Virgin and Hurricane were named by the Mormon settlers and are kind of all over the place, if you ask me.

I flashed my All-Access Pass to the ranger on duty instead of paying the $30 entrance fee. He, like all of them, seemed disappointed.

There are sheer walls and multi-colored canyons.  (pic related)

The road through Zion is fraught with peril. I have years of experience and am licensed to drive all vehicles from a motorcycle to tractor/triple trailer combo. Even still, this route required 100% of my skill, training,experience and concentration if I was to make it through safely. But, since I am a thrillseeker, I gave it about 45%. (pic related)

The yellow line represents the road. The blue dot/arrow is the EM-50 Phantom Rambler

There is, what appears to be, a tunnel on the side of a mountain that even Wile E. Coyote – super genius, wouldn’t fall for (pic related)

so they changed their minds and dug one at ground level.

I hiked out to The Overlook – about 1 mile round trip. But instead of seeing a cimarron I got to see the treacherous road I had travelled.

I think the folks at Garmin nailed this one

No big horns 🙁

I drove back the way I came and went to the Visitor’s Center to complain about all the signs warning about Big Horn x-ing, and all the stuffed ones for sale in the gift shop.

I spoke to some bearded, young, punk, hipster, ranger guy. In my best people voice I asked,

“So, what are the odds of actually seeing one of the Big Horns? Cuz, I’ve been all through the park and all I saw was some stinking mule deer.”

He looked at me long and disgustedly. He was trying to decide if he hated me because I was fucking with him or because he envied my luck. This ranger was suffering from outdoor burnout. Too much nature for too long.  When finally he spoke he said, nastily, “Yeah, well, you’re the first, then.”

“I am?” I asked.

“Yes, you are. What I wouldn’t give to be able to go out into the park, or just drag my ass home one day and not see them ISIS-fuckers all over the place.”

It took me a moment to get the name he called them, and then I thought it was hilarious. I didn’t laugh though because he was serious.

“So, why didn’t I see them?” I asked.

He looked at me appraising and said, while nodding with just his eyes, “Cuz you ain’t looking.”

Then, slightly friendlier, he added, “Go back to the east side – there aren’t any here on the west side. You gotta go high. Them fuckers like it up high.”

I didn’t bother to tell him I had done this. I just said,  “Ok. Then what?”

“Then, on the other side of the tunnel, if you haven’t run one over by now – which I have to go out and clean off the asphalt, BY THE WAY! – pull off to one of those cut outs on the side of the road. You’ll see one within a minute.”

I thanked him while he just waved me away like I was a pest. And, I drove back along the treacherous road, through the tunnel and to the cutaway.  Nothing.

I sat there. Nothing. I took this pic.

Nothing

So, I sat there thinking about Trixie. My go to reverie. I don’t call her my “dream girl” for nothing. She is a sci-fi geek, you know. This made me think of Star Trek and their old trick of…”Zoom! ENHANCE!”

So, I did…

These ISIS-fuckers had been standing right there in front of me the whole time!

I watched them. They didn’t do much. The one hiding in the bush had the big ass curly horns and all.

One of the others jumped to a different spot and caused a rock slide to come crashing down on one of the ones in the center of the pic. I was horrified as I watched a boulder roll about five feet and strike it right at the knees. I was gonna watch a mountain goat, the very definition of “sure-footedness” fall off of a mountain!

But, a funny thing happened. The boulder hit the goat. Then it (the boulder) split in half and rolled around each side. The goat never even flinched. Nice.

There was now nothing left to do but take my life back into my hands and descend the icy mountain again.

I made it back to St George – also named by the Mormons. I cannot lock in on the pattern.

I’m in Utah and, to be honest, I am a little uncomfortable. I have never been around so many white people since that time Trixie and I were on the set of “Friends” when we took the Warner Bros tour. It is unfamiliar, therefore scary.

I feel conspicuous; like everybody is staring at me. I’ve taken to using drive-thrus and eating my meals alone in the EM-50 Phantom Rambler.

Yes, I know…I am white. But, the people here seem used to it. I’m not. And, I’m not kidding – when I say “everybody”, I mean “EVERY. BODY”.

Cab drivers, convenience store clerks, kitchen staff at restaurants, hotel and liquor store owners, high school athletes, bad drivers…LANDSCAPING CREWS…

Ignore me if I’m being racist. I blame the government.

I started the morning cussing race relations in America.  Well, not exactly. I was cussing well-meaning, but utterly misguided officials.

I was ranting because I couldn’t get to the interstate to take my wife to the airport because the access ramp to THE 15 was part of the route for an MLK parade in downtown Vegas. I cursed our duly-elected representitives and state and municipal employees for being so clueless in that they are the only ones who get to take the holiday off and they fail to consider the impact of road closures.  And, they do not set up detour routes. They just close the roads without warning or option then pat themselves on the back for being evolved.

But, it is 2016 and they were having a parade. A PARADE! You know, like it is NINETEEN16. Where seeing a motor vehicle duded up to be a float and rolling down the road followed by groups of people from various civic organizations zombie-walking while engrossed in conversation, completely oblivious to on-lookers, who consist entirely of people standing on tiptoe, peering to see if the end is in sight because they just want to cross the street, is a big deal or something.  It is not. It is TWENTY16. Enough with the goddamn parades already.

I would have cussed them if this had been St. Patrick’s Day. But, now I get to feel guilty because it is MLK and I am complaining.  You know what…fuck the Irish, too. No offense.

I am back on the road after almost 2 weeks of constant companionship with my bride. I never get tired of her company.

We had a ball! We drank, gambled, partied, talked, smooched, drove out to the desert and looked at rocks and were never not with each other. And, when I dropped her off all I could think of were the things we didn’t do and how it ended much too soon.

I even made friends while in Vegas. Not just people I met and had fun with. Actual FRIENDS! I hadn’t done that since the third grade. It was cool.

But, the quest calls and I respond.

There is a great challenge in the American Southwest. Buried treasure. 20 lbs. of gold. Somewhere in a 5,000,000 square mile area a rich kook hid it. Whoever wants it has only to read his book for clues then help themselves.

So, I drove to St. George, UT to the closest Barnes & Noble (I didn’t know there were any left). It is a big store. 20,000 sq.ft. I searched until I was exhausted but couldn’t find the book. I’m sure I will do much better with the treasure, though.

I finally resorted to Google and learned that the book is sold only in one store. In Santa Fe, NM. 600 miles away. I was there in December. Drat!

I don’t know if $3.5 million in gold is worth driving all the way back there. I will have to sleep on it.

When all of one’s earthly desires are fulfilled,  one runs the risk of becoming complacent.

I’m with Trixie. In Las Vegas. I am the ONE mentioned in the first line.

Since my plan is to write a book about my adventures on this trip and I am using this blog as chronological notes of the expedition, complacency is my enemy. A few notes.

On my way into town I stopped at Hoover Goddammit (editor’s note: my phone keeps correcting “DAM” to “GODDAMMIT” and I am tired of fighting it. It has taught me something about my linguistic habits, though) to have the EM-50 Phantom Rambler searched for explosives.

Guards stuck their heads in, then quickly jerked their heads back out with the eyes watering and their faces scrunched. I think it was the earthy aroma. They have gone soft. They can’t handle that much manliness.

The Hoover Goddammit is HUGE! Unless I had a nuke on board, I’m not sure how much damage I could do. (pic related)

Trixie had to work during this trip, so I ran off to Red Rock Canyon with her (and my) friend, Michelle Slack. I didn’t think to take any pics.

Hmm, let’s see…what else? Trixie groped me in her sleep. It’s not really news. We have been married a long time.

But she was drunk and half asleep and did it to the tune of that old camp song.

She crooned/slurred:

“Found a pee-NUS,

Found a pee-NUS,

Found a pee-NUS just now!

Just now I found a pee-NUS…”

That was kind of funny.

Time is running short. I must plan the next leg of my adventure. Stay tuned.

William Shakespeare once wrote about overthrowing the government.

In “Henry VI” he has a character – a butcher – remark that the first step in any successful revolution is to kill all the lawyers.

Lest people start thinking that I actually read “Henry VI” or even knew that was the name of one of Bill’s published works, let me disabuse you of that notion right now. I did not.

I don’t cite an exact quote for the same reason I never read the play.  You can’t.  Shakespeare’s works are like Nostradomus’ prophecies.  You read the line, pretend to try to decipher it, then look at the teacher and wait for her to explain what it means. Then you smile big like it suddenly makes sense so that she doesn’t make you repeat it in your own words.

Anyway, I think I see where he was going with this. Lawyers gain power when people argue, not by actually resolving anything. If you try to make a broad and sweeping change, they will find a way to tie it up in court until everybody but them is broke. So, yeah. I’m down with that.

I’m pretty sure I speak for everyone when I say, “Step one. Dust the lawyers. Check”

But, what is Step Two? I mean, there we are, surrounded by fallen lawyers. How do we rebuild society and have Peace on Earth and Goodwill towards our fellow man?

Pencils up!…we can’t.  And, the reason we can’t is because we are hostile toward strangers – especially friendly ones. You just KNOW those bastards are up to no good. And the reason for this is…people who work at kiosks. They have to go next.

Because of them we dart through malls with our eyes down (because, admit it, we all dread  making eye contact with them) zigging and zagging when they have locked in on us. They are aggressive and not bound by the traditional borders of the conventional storefronts on which the country was built.

If they sense weakness, they will abandon their post and give chase, shouting greetings and making us quickly learn to avoid engaging in even the most mundane of interpersonal pleasantries. Because we know that if we let them button hole us, then it is we who have to become the rude jerk who won’t take a moment to speak to someone who is being friendly. We can’t handle being the bad guy in our own story.

These folks are everywhere in Vegas – hotel lobbies, street corners, middle of the sidewalk, any area of high traffic and they want a moment of your time so they can “give” you amazing opportunities that seem way too good to be true. They are.

Except the middle of the sidewalk guys – they just want to hand you a little card with pornography on it and have you keep moving. They don’t even speak English anyway.

I understand that these people are just doing their jobs. But, remember, so were lawyers and we did not hesitate to execute them on the spot.

So, because of these people, the rest of us are assholes. Except for me. And, Trixie. But even she has her moments.

There is hope for the rest of us. Hell, I met some of that hope last night in the form of Michelle Slack.

They’re both nuts. I don’t like what standing between them makes me.

Somehow she and Trixie know each other because there is music that is piped across the planet that only crazy, party girls can hear and it is like a Siren Song that summons them to Las Vegas, NV – Bad Decisions Capital of the World.

I was comfortably ensconced in the blankets watching reruns of “King of Queens” Trixie was off, Pluto-knows-where, doing Hades-knows-what, but I am fairly sure it involved drinking whiskey and gambling, when I got a text telling me to report to one of the many bars in the lobby of the Luxor.

I did. I met the two Michelle’s – I want to say “kindred spirits” but that doesn’t have a devilish enough spin – how about, “kindred casino nymphs”? Meh. Close enough.

They sat side-by-side pounding shots, laughing and winning at video poker.

To my everlasting shame, I could not keep up with these two. And, finally, at about 3 am (or, a week from next Tuesday with the time change) I made my way back to the room.

It was a night of fun and frolic. Lifelong friends were made. And, it showed me that there are people left that make this world worth saving by killing the lawyers and kiosk people.

Loyal readers can tell you, I spent a few days at Slab City recently.

It is called, by some, “The Last Free Place in America.”

Trixie wanted a visual. And, what Trixie wants, Trixie gets.

I did a quick drive through the area and broke it up into a 5-part mini-series.

Repeated attempts to upload the footage met with failure.

Like the Little Engine That Could, I kept at it and finally got it onto YouTube.

For those interested,  here they are.

Part 1 is about 7 minutes long.

The other are much shorter…

Slab City pt 1

Slab City pt2

Slab City pt3

Slab City pt4

Slab City pt5

I’ve been researching popular music so I can put a name to the horrible noises that greet me everywhere I go in Vegas.

I’m not doing very well keeping current.

My skills at pattern recognition have helped me to determine that what makes a song a hit is, the big-money music people decide what we will listen to and play it until we think we like it. The process should work the other way around, but I think the system, like all others, is designed to put the onus on the masses.

Anyway, apparently there is some Korean guy named Oppa or Psy or something…I dunno, who is currently burning up the charts with his “Gangnam Style”, which is meant to showcase a life of opulent luxury and conspicuous consumption.  Kids today.

However, this song (and related video)

PSY – GANGNAM STYLE(강남스타일) M/V: http://youtu.be/9bZkp7q19f0

…makes a couple of good points.

First, it shows how I am right about the system. Except for his sick dance moves (which strongly resemble my version of the “Curly Shuffle” after I mix Red Bull & Mountain Dew) everything about it is awful. But, kids today (and Trixie) absolutely love it. Because they are supposed to – not because it has any merit. But, in their minds, they are all loving it…ironically.

They seems to be saying, like they do with all hits, “Haha! Can you believe this song is on the radio 24/7? Haha! It is so awful! Haha! He reminds me of William Hung! Haha! As IF we could ever like something like this! Hey! Play it again while I download it from iTunes! Haha!

Second, Gangnam Style accurately describes how I have been living since Trixie got to Vegas. Relative to life on the road in the EM-50 Phantom Rambler, that is.

We are in The Luxor. Upon check-in we got “upgraded” to a room that has 29′ more square feet than the one we were supposed to get because the one we were supposed to get was in the pyramid and they “upgraded” other folks who were supposed to be in the tower. I would rather be in the pyramid, though.

But, it is nice and plenty spacious.

On the first day of our reunion, Trixie kept staring dopily into my eyes and reaching over and pinching me to make sure I was real. While I, on the other hand, stared dopily at her chest, reaching over and pinching her because I like the way she feels.

Now that we have settled down and gotten reaccustomed to being around each other, just like old times, we can fall back into a routine. She has demanded that I give popular music a fair chance. As a result, I have promised to go with her to a club. To keep from embarrassing myself I have insisted that she first teach me “The Harlem Shake” and how to “Whip Nae Nae” That last one is a real thing…I shit you not. Like you, I assumed it was a practical joke perpetrated to make people look and sound ridiculous at the same time. But it is a genuine art form and that makes it respectable.

I got a charley horse in my buttock doing the Horizontal Mambo with…Trixie