Get Off My Desert Lawn!

Author: R.C.

  • WAY-to-MO

    Yesterday, while stopped at Rancho and Sahara, I noticed a self-driving car to my right. What’s so exciting about that you ask?

    Absolutely nothing.

    What was exciting was the truck behind it.

    The Waymo car wanted to turn right onto Sahara but had the red light. Obviously, its programming said it wasn’t safe to turn yet. For most drivers it was obviously safe. I looked. There weren’t any cars coming. Still, the car didn’t move.

    Enter the truck moron.

    I’ll spare him the dignity of not describing him, but needless to say I don’t think they guy has ever read a word in his life.

    If anyone has ever seen a Waymo car before but DRIVERLESS CAR and CAR MAKES SUDDEN STOPS are plastered all over the back of the car.

    So, why would you honk at it?

    Not just once, but multiple times.

    As soon as we got the green light, the honker peeled away from the Waymo car and sped off. I couldn’t help but think that this scholar is one of those guys that weaves in and out of traffic only to meet everyone he’s passed at the same red light.

    Everyone should know that the quickest distance between two points is a straight line, not a high-speed crab walk.

    That’s something you learn in school.

    I’m starting to think that when you get pulled over, the cop should ask for license, registration, and diploma.

    Then again, driving should be fun, and we could all use a good laugh every now and then.

    Thank you Waymo!

  • Brain Dead

    I went to the Weird Al concert this past weekend. I’ve never seen him perform before. While he is extremely entertaining, there was a part of the show where I had to stop and wonder.

    Not wonder about what song he was making fun of, or why I had never gone to one of his shows before. I had to wonder about me.

    When it was time to sing FAT (Michael Jackson’s BAD), Weird Al came out in a fat suit complete with a fat mask. If you’ve seen DODGEBALL, Weird Al’s face looked exactly like Ben Stiller at the end of the movie, when he’s eating chicken.

    Since coming on to the music scene, Weird Al has always been a symbol of harmless fun. While I don’t follow his career closely, I’ve never seen or heard him say anything disparaging about anyone. I don’t even know what political party he sides with.

    So, what’s the problem? Is it that Weird Al was in an outfit that was four times his body size, singing about fat people?

    No.

    The problem was that as soon as he came on stage, I thought OH SHIT.

    Twenty, thirty years ago I would have been laughing my ass of at his theatrics. Instead, all I could think of was how many people he was going to piss off.

    That’s when I realized I was brain dead.

    Millennials, Gen Z, the woke, cancel culture, stupidity, whatever you want to call it, has obviously embedded itself in my brain. As much as I make fun of those groups, they have a tight grip on my head.

    While I should be amazed at how skillful Weird Al is in a fat suit, I’m looking around the audience to see if anyone is shaking their head.

    I felt like I had lost the battle.

    The funny part is I didn’t feel bad for me. I felt bad for Weird Al.

    While I hope to God I’m wrong, I know there will be many more who watch the song the way I did. No one is ever alone in their thinking. All I can do is hope no one says anything because that’s when the trouble starts.

    Unfortunately, someone, somewhere will.

    It’s a shame we can’t just enjoy comedy for what it is. Or anything for that matter. What pisses me off the most is that subconsciously I’ve allowed the stupidity to take control of my brain.

    Has my independent thinking gone by the wayside?

    Am I brain dead?

  • You’re Stupid!

    Why not just come out and tell us?

    I just watched a commercial for Starbucks. It was closed captioned, which we all know (hopefully), is meant for the hard of hearing. It makes life easier by letting them read what’s going on when they can’t hear it.

    Starbucks should be commended for closed captioning the commercial, right? No. Not when you put Baba O’Reilly between music signs.

    If you can’t hear, how do you know what Baba O’Reilly, or any song for that matter, sounds like?

    It makes zero sense.

    But someone approved it.

    Which brings me to the Aquasana commercial.

    They have one where their spokesman has two glasses of water. He states one is Aquasana and the other is dirty tap water.

    Yuck.

    He goes through his pitch of how great Aquasana is, but at the end can’t figure out which glass has the Aquasana water. He even says, “Wait, which one is it?”

    if you want me to know how safe your water is over regular water, shouldn’t you know which water is bad to drink?

    Now that I think about it, it doesn’t matter anyway. We need to drink water to wash down the pills we need to take.

    You know the ones. The pills that will make us look good but are killing us internally.

    You want to lose weight? No problem.

    Get rid of itchy skin? Again, no problem.

    You can clear anything up. Hell, you’ll even be able to dance in the streets with like-minded people. So what’s the problem?

    Nothing. Unless you want diarrhea that makes Mt. Vesuvius look like a 3rd grade science project. If that’s not enough, you’ll probably want to kill yourself.

    They do warn you not to take the drug if you’re allergic to it. That’s good because that might kill us.

    I don’t think we’re that stupid.

  • Hollywood 0.0

    At one point in my life, I wanted to be a screenwriter, so I find it funny that I’m happy the Summerlin Studios didn’t pass the recent legislative session. It was discovered that the proposed tax credits Sony and Warner Brothers would not be able to be recovered. One of the great things about Nevada is most of the people who run things truly care about the state, and not just their interests. You think that sounds funny? It’s even funnier to write.

    But it’s true.

    There was a lot of talk about how great it would be to have film studios here. Yes, it sounds great until you think about the reality.

    Vegas is a hospitality town. Hollywood is a me town.

    Whether they want to admit it or not, locals look after each other. Every one of us is willing to help our neighbor even if we don’t know them. We take care of each other as well as we take care of tourists. We are one big extended family. We suffer through extreme heat, flash flooding, and wild high winds. Should something happen to anyone, we’re out there trying to figure out how we can help.

    Hollywood is about egos and destruction. The mantra “What Have You Done For Me Lately” is perfect. Hollywood is known for chewing people up and spitting them out without hesitation. I could go on and on about how terrible it can be.

    So, what would happen if the two were to actually meet?

    Summerlin’s arrogance would be able to be seen from the space station.

    Can you imagine all the fancy cars radiating attitude? Traffic in Hollywood is horrendous, and they’re surrounded by a few freeways. Summerlin has one. The 215. I’m not counting the Summerlin Parkway.

    As it stands Summerlin is a little too hoity toity for me, but it’s still accessible. The “Summerliners” don’t bother me because they’re still very nice people. I could be wrong, but I think the influx of Hollywood types would ruin Summerlin as a whole.

    Do you know who I am?

    Do you know who my dad is?

    Are you in the industry?

    Ugh.

    Don’t forget all the traffic it would bring as well. A lot of fancy cars sitting in congestion is exactly what every local wants. We already sit in ridiculous traffic on the 15 and 95. Why not on Sahara, and Flamingo, and so on? Sounds great, especially when it’s 440 degrees outside.

    Actually, I take that back. I’d like to see the convertibles sitting in traffic.

    In the end, for every positive thing Hollywood 2.0 would bring, I could think of three negative things.

    But who wants to read about that.

    Let’s just make our Las Vegas lives easier. Hollywood should stay in Hollywood.

  • The Starting Line

    Every story, good and bad, has to have a starting point.

    For me, the starting line isn’t birth, but my rebirth in Vegas.

    I moved here in 2003 from Los Angeles, and in the classic sob story, didn’t have a job or money, and I drove here in a leased car. While I love gambling, I was never one for slot machines. That’s all I knew Vegas to be. So why move here?

    There were plenty of jobs. Or so I thought.

    The first lesson I learned was there was a lot of nepotism when it came to the good paying jobs. That’s true everywhere, but Las Vegas was much smaller then, so it felt like a way to keep outsiders out.

    The second lesson I learned was it didn’t matter. Casino jobs were easy to come by. AND they paid very well.

    The hard part for me was getting used to the slower pace. Being from LA where everything is go-go-go, it took a long time for me to adjust. What made it more challenging was the fact that there wasn’t really anything to do. The only thing to do for fun was go to a casino. It felt like they controlled everything. If you wanted to go out to eat, you went to a casino. There weren’t many mom and pop type restaurants. Want to see a movie? They’re located inside a casino. I can’t complain about that because it’s actually very convenient. I’m just trying to make a point.

    Change is inevitable.

    As more and more people make Las Vegas home, I now know how the locals felt when I moved here.

    This is where my starting line is.