Vegas Baby - Why I'm embarrassed to say I'm going there

I just returned from one of my twice yearly trips to Las Vegas but please, just calm down.  I hate that I can't just say that I'm going there and be done with it before whomever I tell gets the chance to say "All-RIGHT!", "You're so lucky!" or a sickly "Oooh! *wink wink*." Without a thought, I find myself saying, "I'm going to Vegas for work, but I hate it there." It's all those debauched expectations of Vegas that have forced me to say this, lest I immediately have to bring them down from their bogus high after they've expressed unwarranted delight.

I have travelled extensively and no place on earth has a more immediate and consistent reaction than Las Vegas. Whatever our differences are, apparently we are all supposed to come together in Sin City for over indulgence and the wasting of money. Perhaps there's a  booth marked "Brain Check" at Primm, Nevada, just after you cross the border when driving in from LA, but I must have missed it because I am never unaware of the failings of this town.

For the middle aged suburbanite, I suppose I can understand the appeal. They don't get out much and when they do, there isn't a lot for them to do. The closest thing to Las Vegas is their local sports bar, and so these people come in droves where they can drink, gamble and stay up late which they would never otherwise get to do. Fine. I get that.

Faux opulence at every turn, yet no-one bothers to dress up for it which kinda defeats the purpose.

But when it comes to people around my age, living in a big city, I simply don't understand it. What is there to do in Las Vegas? Gamble, drink, eat, go to clubs. All of those things except gambling can be done in Los Angeles without tourists with polo shirts tucked into their khakis at every turn. The other big demographic are frat boys and douchebags and the girls who want to date them. Once again, in Vegas you can do things you can do at home but with a higher price and the addition of morons.

Cutting loose in Vegas like you can only do there.

While in the company of some of the most miserable and annoying people America has to offer, you can walk around and suck on a giant margarita. Perhaps the giant cup and straw is a badge of honour. I am a party animal. I am going to drink this ridiculous amount of weak alcohol and follow it up with five more. I know how to have a good time. Envy me. Garish and weak, I'd rather drink at a bar near my home that's off the radar of the pig people. Plus me being drunk and belligerent around stupid people could get me into trouble.

A slideshow of some of the many things Vegas boasts. (*Note* I have nothing against old people, but they do make up a large portion of your Vegas party cohorts.)

Of course there's still the gambling. Unless you live near an Indian Reservation, Nevada or Atlantic City, gambling is otherwise not available to you, but again, I don't need to tell you that Vegas was built on losers. Any time you spend at a slot machine or table you are again surrounded by desperation and depression as people pump away their life savings so the next biggest casino in town can be built and they walk away wondering if they'll be able to pay their health insurance bill this month. And again with the ugly t-shirts, khakis and obesity.  There is some relief on the casino floor as a waif-ish, scantily clad, overly tanned cocktail waitress will come by to offer you a free, weak drink. Her humiliating "sexy" outfit and depressed expression she wears as she walks away from you reminds you of what this hell hole does to people who actually live there.

"Did you want dignity with that White Russian?"

I am not made of stone. Of course the strip is dazzling and unlike any place on earth. There was a time many moons ago where upon first arrival in Vegas I'd be giddy with excitement and think I wanted to move there. Like clockwork, on every occasion after almost exactly 24 hours of this feeling, I couldn't wait to leave. Everything looks so amazing from a distance, so like a mirage, you walk and walk trying to get there. When you get there, oops, there are just a bunch a slot machines. Further you trudge, Paris is right there! But again, you go in and it's just more slots.

The good old days

Going out to eat is something I enjoy and the dining in Vegas, previously wretched, has greatly improved. Still, most restaurants have lines to get in and are ridiculously expensive. One would think that Vegas could at least come through for me as a night owl. Again, no. Apparently if you want to go out and get crazy, you better start early because most of the restaurants close at 10pm. One time we ended up eating at the only place that was open because apparently 10:30 was too late to be starting our big night out. When we finally did hit the town, not much was going on. There was no perpetual party, but rather we'd have to seek out an activity much like we'd do back at home and most bars closing just one hour later than at home.

The bad new days

The other end of me having to hear others get needlessly excited about me going to Vegas is being told that others are going there with the expectation that I am supposed to give one of the responses I outlined earlier. If you utter the phrase, "I'm going to Vegas, Baby!" it will be met with a sullen expression and a groan. Apparently I am supposed to be automatically impressed. No, while I have no doubt reasonable people can have fun there, I am not wowed by a mecca for the culturally oppressed. That is not, and should not be a given. The notion that it is Disneyland for adults is a fallacy so I would simply appreciate otherwise sane people not assuming that without question, hardcore partying is totally what's going to happen.  Las Vegas is definitely worth seeing once, but if you tell me you're going, please don't call me "baby".

Thanks, but no thanks.

Movie guilt

As regular readers may have assessed, I'm often a socially awkward, nutty mess. Here's yet another chapter in my struggle to comfortably sail through simple social settings. Thankfully, I've eventually realised that I am not alone in movie recommendation anxiety.

The problem I struggle with is the pressure to ensure the good time of others. In the instance of orchestrating a movie viewing, if their movie viewing is of my urging, then I feel a tremendous pressure for everyone to like it. If they do not, I feel that I have failed them miserably and that my good character and presumably respected taste will be tarnished. The problem with this coniditon is that it prevents ME from having a good time. I'm now wondering why I'm writing this since its a lot like my birthday party blog from 11 months ago. I don't think I repeat myself too often, so fuck it. I shall proceed.

(Oh shit. What if they think I'm boring and out of ideas and stop reading my blog? What if they thought I was cool all this time but this blog evokes the final yawn before they close the door on The Angry Tiki? Why do I write blogs? I'm just asking to be judged and I can't take the heat. Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit....)

The first noted instance of movie guilt, and possibly the benchmark for all related nausea ocurred, I believe, in 1996 when I organised for my gang of friends to see the newest Leslie Nielsen movie, Spy Hard. Yeah, I know. It seemed like a good idea at the time. We all liked The Naked Gun films, so it stood to reason this would follow suit, but instead the whole thing was a disaster. There must have been about eight of us who went which was a great responsibility to provide entertainment for. Shortly after it started, my friends were getting up and going outside to smoke, returning, groaning at the movie, shaking their heads at me, then leaving again. Since I had been the champion of this screening, I felt compelled to sit it out and honestly, I didn't think I thought it was so bad. Perhaps I was a late bloomer in my cynicism, but I daresay that today I can out cynic all those fuckers put together any day of the week and twice on Sunday. But not quite yet in this story. I suggested this movie, everyone hated it and my reputation was mud. I copped a lot of shit for that one.

What happened? It says right there that it "Absolutely hilarious" and "Very funny". What gives?

Fast forward to couple of years later. A Clockwork Orange was playing at an arthouse theatre and I had never seen it. My taste had blossomed, obviously as I was seeking out this well regarded film, revered by many of my musical heroes. I knew it was one of those "must see" movies of a certain ilk and so I advised my friend Mark and my sister of this "must see" aspect and advised they come along. I had no idea what to expect and subsequently, my mind was blown by it in a good way. At least I think it was. As much as I thought it was titilating and fascinating, I knew it was nothing like anything us suburban folk usually sought out. So my feelings about the film were completely confused. It was right up my alley, yet I spent the entire film with what felt like a large rock in my stomach and every peculiar and perverse event only made it heavier. "How much longer is it? How much more can they take? They must fucking hate this and me for bringing them to this. God, this is so awesome." I thought to myself.

Alex assaults a woman with a giant penis sculpture. Yeah, I guess that was shocking...the first time I saw it in Gone With The Wind! Sheesh.

Finally, it ended and I was relieved. We walked to car.

Rebecca: That was really good!
Mark: Yeah! I wouldn't mind seeing it again, actually.

THEY HAD A BETTER TIME THAN I DID!

Ugh.

You would think that lesson would resonate and be yet another reminder (and there are many) that I should chill the fuck out. It can work if I think about it and self talk myself into relaxing, but then I realise that that only applies to that incident and there could be many more Spy Hards ahead. No, actually. There really couldn't be anything that humiliating ahead of me.

I recently realised that I had accumulated enough of a collection of similar stories from other people to constitute an epidemic, if a total of four can in fact make an epidemic. To those of you who do not suffer from such incredible insecurity and self loathing, I salute you.

Here are some other examples from others:

My friend's mother got it into her head that she wanted to see a Kill Bill because she had heard all about Quentin Tarantino. After much effort to deter her, the mother was set to see the movie and so my friend struggled to relax through all the swearing and violence in the company of her mother. The discomfort wasn't misplaced as I believe the mother got up from the theatre with either no remark or something very vague and polite, not addressing what was just seen.

The blushing Bride in Kill Bill.

My brother-in-law Sam was afraid to go see the Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny with my parents because he thought it would be inappropriate to laugh at the certain things in front of them. He was somewhat forced to attend this family outing as the film featured yours truly in a stellar performance as an extra. Thankfully, my parents were well warned ahead of time and seemed to be able to roll with it and delight in mine and Neil Hamburger's performances.

I'm all over this scene from 1:37 onwards. Check it.

There is one other incident in which the guilt was carried by someone else regarding Gladiator, but since that incident ended in tears (not mine, thankfully), I feel it's best it remain untold, though I will say that I was able to comfort this person with my own movie guilt tales.

Oddly, even after the Tenacious D incident which I was not at, I was more disturbed to learn that my parents went to see Clerks II. I was not there and I did not recommend it to them, but somehow I felt awful by virtue of the fact that liked Kevin Smith movies and quite enjoyed Clerks II myself. My parents had Gold Class movie tickets which were expiring and were desperate to make use of them. For those who don't know, Gold Class are fancy movie tickets where you watch the movie in a special theatre with reclining seats and can order food and beverages to be delivered to your seat. These tickets are often prizes in work places which is how I think they came have them, however no amount of padding and champagne could prepare my poor, innocent mother for excessive planning and final realisation of a scene in which a man has sex with a donkey. I had so much guilt once I heard about that and I had nothing to do with it.

My mother should never have had to see a man doing the vagina thing.

I thought I was the only person to suffer this, but I'm starting to realise that I'm not. I'm hoping that shedding some light on the matter might help to alleviate some of the discomfort.

After 13 years, it's over

Sorry to sound all dramatic, and you'll hate me when you see what the fuss is about, but my 13 year fan affair with the Foo Fighters is over. I'm sure many of you will say "about bloody time" since they sucked all along anyway, while some of you wont see what the problem is, but I think it's all kind of important in the grand scheme of things, so I'm going to try and lay it out as best I can.

I'm kinda known for being a music snob, so my unrelenting devotion to the Foo Fighters and Green Day were always blemishes on my record, but fuck everyone, because I'll never be ashamed of what I like. They'd both been there since my teenager years, and I'm nothing if not devoted. I stood by them as they made some lousy albums, just because I had such a good time at their shows, but in both cases, even that is no longer the case.

Me with Dave and Taylor from the first time I met Dave in 1998. It had been a long time coming. (Yes, I am wearing the same top from the top picture which was taken 5 years after this one)

Is the problem that I'm getting too old, you may wonder? Hardly. I go to these shows with as much energy as my lazy ass can muster, getting as close to the action as possible with the intention to rock my little heart out, always mindful that I will soon be snickered at by kids for being old and rockin'. But both these bands have sold out to such a disgusting degree that is has just about tainted everything they ever did in the past. The problem is that because they have opted to appeal to the mass market, they end up playing enormous arenas and stadiums and playing horrible arena rock style shows. Just six years ago, I saw Green Day and they invited people to request songs. Now everything is meticulously planned down to every explosion, jam and ribbing of George W. Bush. The Foo Fighters show I saw last week, the one which drove the final nail into the Foo coffin, was promised by Dave at the beginning to be the best show of their ever, eclipsing what they had to offer on all previous tours. The big arena rock show. With the acoustic stage set up down the cat walk 3/4 down into the area, I was not sold on this promise.

Even with my skepticism, I tried to have an open mind. I mean, I WANTED to enjoy it. I wanted nothing more than that out of the evening. I must have liked something about the eleven previous times I had seen them. I saw them five times, two tours before this one, I was growing weary of all the stretching out of songs and the boring rehearsed "jams". On the last tour on In Your Honor, an album which sucked incredibly, the live show had tightened up and I had a great time and was sorry when it ended. I thought they had figured it out and would go back to putting on a straightforward and simple rock show. For this reason, I thought there was promise for this most recent tour, despite the fact that the album sucking reaching unforgivable proportions.

Once the March 5th show at the LA Forum began, I can't even begin to explain the horrible mix of emotions I had to wade through. At first I jumped around with glee as they played This Is A Call, only to have them, not only break for a long winded jam in the middle (and I can't stand jams, period) but it was a fucking BLUES jam of all things. Can you think of anything more repellent? I can't, and I don't have to because I was there and saw this atrocity with my own two eyes and heard with my now aurally raped ears. I really did not need to see Dave Grohl leaning back with his eyes closed, a la Eric Clapton EVER, let alone in the middle of This Is A Call. It was so bad I was flipping him off and screaming "STOP!" During some other songs, no more than 30 minutes into the two hours set, we were further tortured with a four minute drum solo. Who the fuck wants to hear that?

Substitute "loud" for "lame".

So how do they get away with this? What is wrong with people? The problem is that this current caliber of fans is so excited to be at a show and with that many people in one place, the percentage on brainlessness is high, so they all cheer because "Look! Dave Grohl walked to my side of the stage!" or "Oooh! They are doing something different other than playing the song but I am too stupid to judge it and figure out that it is TERRIBLE and nothing I would listen to in my spare time." So since they cheer, the band, now so incredibly deluded, thinks they have succeeded in entertaining. Jam after jam is nothing short of self indulgent. It's just like masturbating on stage, and that would probably be better since most of the people in crowd, male and female, are curious about Dave Grohl's wiener.

So the huge problem with Foo Fighters and Green Day doing this is that they are cheating us. They said they were punk rock, and even if they aren't the best rock bands going today, they are few of the ones who aren't 20 years old, started playing music just to be famous and have no angst in their past. The least they could do is keep some credibility in mainstream rock. There are people who have knee-jerk reactions to things that are popular which I think is stupid because that means that nothing truly good can be popular. There was a time when lots of music that was good, was also popular.

The movement of crowd says it all. They don't move. They aren't moved by music like kids use to be. Just looking back to the mania caused by The Beatles and Elvis. That happened because the music was releasing the kids from their oppressed existences so they had something to scream and shout about. In times of war, music was a great commentary and release on what people were facing. That power of music, seems to have died. There is nothing to be released from as everyone is so self absorbed and kept occupied with consumerism. Mainstream rock music that comes out now is merely music made with guitars that are complimented by certain body movements, if one can be bothered. It does not seem to provide any kind of serious emotional involvement that rock once did. As the years have gone on, I have seen the crowds grow weaker and weaker as far as "going nuts" is concerned. Passion is so sincerely lacking in our culture and we need it! Passion drives everything, so it's a sad state of affairs when rock music can't even get the kids going any more.

This may read as me poo-pooing success. I am not. I am poo-pooing what corrupt corporate bands do with the success once they have it. The Foo Fighters have found that by pandering to every media outlet and making horrendous but palatable "rock", they can stay popular, and famous and continue making gazillions of dollars. Having so much popularity and the attention of so many is a huge opportunity to instill some fading, yet important values into music. It's an opportunity which Dave Grohl has squandered. Choosing the corporate path that is the antithesis of his punk rock roots, Dave Grohl shows himself to be a complete and utter fraud, he comes off as the nice guy, blows off Paris Hilton, name drops Buzz Osbourne of the Melvins at the gay-ass Foo Fighters acoustic show (okay, I had a better time that I thought I would, but it wasn't ideal) and delivers us corporate rock with all the trimmings. Of course if anything is going to be popular, there is going to be some fat cat ready to cash in. This didn't use to mean that the art had to suffer and all principles ignored by the artist. Does it mean that now? I'm not sure. All I know is that Dave Grohl appears overcome with greed, (or maybe just bad taste?) and just is about shitting on stage and onto CDs.

Since Dave Grohl's roots are in punk rock, it is disgusting to watch him whore himself out and completely turn his back on what he came from. Not only WHAT he came from, but the people from way back and the fans like me who were there for his little post-Nirvana effort. Don't think I'm taking this lightly. I loved this band, and loved this man. I just thought he was one of the good guys, and most importantly, sincere. I never thought I would live to say this, but FUCK YOU, DAVE GROHL.

*Epilogue*

At the time of writing most of this blog, two and a half weeks ago, I was annoyed. Between then and I now, the more I've thought about that godawful show, the angrier and more disenchanted I have become. I have proudly stated numerous time that I will never see the Foo Fighters again. When I said that, I was quite committed to that idea and truly believed it, with perhaps a slight awareness that deep in my heart, I may go see them on a nostalgia tour in 15 years when no-one gives a rat's ass about these crusty old rockers. I didn't realise that I may not get to stick to this resolve for even four months. My beloved, my most favourite, my "I'm going to see shows in four or five cities when they tour" band, Supergrass, it has just been revealed, are touring the US opening for the Foo Fighters. I am crushed to say the least. Funnily enough, given that they have opened for them before (a lineup I was pining for at the time) while at that most recent, uninspired Foo show, I wished Supergrass were opening. Be careful what you wish for, people.