USA Email Series 17: Tortured metaphors, the karate kid, big bird and the hide of a bloodhound‏

(First sent: 15th October 2009)

Hello you beautiful people,

I realise that as I have spent the last few days wound up (and then finally released) in Vegas like a monkey kept inside on a rainy day finally released among the tyres, that I have been neglecting you my dear reader. My idiocy is matched only by my durability and here I am to once again deliver musings stateside. Yes, you lucky folk, deprived for weeks of my witty, inane and irrelevant banter, you now find yourself feasting like wolverine at the flesh of yet more of my continual wittering.

And what a few days it has been. Finally leaving San Diego was a wrench. After all, the pleasures of dining from the 'free stuff' table (i.e. picking over the remnants of passing travellers forgotten nachos, like 16 year olds minesweeping beers at a wedding), scrubbing toilets like a deranged human pipe cleaner and being responsible for hostellers drunken antics on pub crawls that would make Solomon weep, has not been easy. To my friends in San Diego I say: hello, farewell and now bugger off.

The leaving party seemed never to end and eventually no one really remembered when it began (similar to baseball, only without the DVT and lingering thoughts that suicide really is a viable option) stretching as it did over the course of two days.

Wednesday saw the spectre of the famed 'Wednesday Night Pub Crawl' reappear like Jacob Marley to taunt me and then leave me as ashen faced as Scrooge. It also seemed to destroy my goodwill to all men as I descended from yet another mechanical bull, knocked a drink out of Australian Dan's hand, and proceed to go A over T right in the middle of the pub.

You'd think that by now I'd have realised that mechanical animals are best avoided, having nearly garroted myself in Tijuana. When the robot beasts are combined with beer, they cause a violent riding up of the jean gusset to such an extent that mummy Adams may have had to content herself with a third daughter. Either that or find me literally half the man I used to be. Hitler, eat your heart out (as in '...he's only got one ball' and not meaning that the spirit of Texas is somehow siphoned into the clockwork rodeo and succeeded in turning me into a stauncher right-winger than Aaron Lennon with half an Airfix kit).

The comedy did not end there. For, as I looked about me whilst sprawled on the floor I realised that I'd come over all Karate Kid and managed to 'sweep the leg' of Aliya, the girlfriend of said Aussie. I was all of a dither at first, somehow not comprehending the world... 'Oh, I thought I fell over, what are you doing here' was my initial thought until the glass shattered on my imagined success at keeping my feet and I finally realised I'd made a bigger tit of myself than Big Bird with a bucket of blue paint on Halloween.

I was deeply concerned for the well being of my fellow staff member so cruelly transformed from 'vertical' to 'horizontal'. So concerned, that when I finally stopped laughing for long enough, I did the decent thing and ejected myself from the pub to wait outside. The confused face of the bar staff member who was sent over to kick me out for my buffoonery (is that a real word?) when he saw me causally walk past him and straight out the door will live with me forever. He was almost sad: "Damn him, I wanted to do it".

Nethertheless, we persisted on with the night out and had an intellectual evening contemplating the great philosophers: Plato, Nietzsche, Partridge. Actually, it ended exactly as you'd expect, with tequilas all round and a kebab. But it was a philosophical kebab at that accompanied by some resolute and enlightening chat on the health benefits of kebab over 7/11 chicken (which is half beast, half guts).

The following evening was my true 'last night' but was a calmer affair where we caused not affray but dismay, as we took ourselves uptown to the outer reaches of San Diego and the Hillcrest district near the University. We were very safe and visited some different places and areas to those I'd been to before but there was a lingering feeling in the group that we should have just gone to the 'Whiskey Girl', lost some brain cells, thrown shapes and mooned a taxi.

Actually, mooning can get you into some serious bother in San Diego being, as it is, a military town and the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy isn't one you want to be putting to the test after a few sherbets in the company of guys who spend a lot of time with other guys. Bumming. (joke; don't kill me Texans).

Shady faced but full of vigour, Dan and I headed to Vegas the next day. Vegas. Bloody hell. Not so much a place as a pit, contained by the wall of the surrounding desert to claim liver, dignity and dollar. As I had built up goodwill with the USA Hostel chain we had free accommodation for 3 nights in their Vegas hostel, located off the strip. How then can it be that somehow I felt screwed?

Perhaps because the hostel is located in an area that wouldn't be good enough for Britney Spears next wedding reception. What a toilet. Actually defecating in the street might have improved the place and at least given the bums something to chuckle at. But, I'm dead serious when I say that it wasn't so much dangerous as depressing. The stench of failed gambling, marriage and dream clung to the air like smoke from a fire in a tyre warehouse. Leaving Las Vegas? Too bloody right sunshine.

Still, we made the best of it and tore up the strip a couple of nights, but it's just a very odd experience. Think of Caesar's Palace: The grandeur. The pomp. The whiff of air freshener and the sting of just dim enough / just light enough tube lighting designed to give me an immediate headache. My pictures betray the reality. Here's my Vegas advice: get in, see what you need to, then scarper quick before you feel your soul wither like a grape in a sauna.

So we did, and now I find myself in El Paso. I can't do justice to it today and will save my writing 'pon it still further. But, my dearest companions, it is a right funny old spot. I'll shed light on my meaning soon enough, but until then, let my list of activities keep you warm and fuzzy at night. Here it is:

1. Headed for the drive in before leaving San Diego. A great experience, marred only by the fact that the van had to be kept ticking over to keep the radio on (you tune the radio to the film soundtrack) and there was a constant fear that we might be stuck with either no fuel or a flat battery.
2. Tried in vain to take pictures of it, but for some reason, a huge illuminated rectangle in the pitch black of the night doesn't make for the best pictures. Damn you flash photography, do my bidding.
3. Hit the beach one last time, but it's not the same when the weathers a bit rubbish
4. What supplies I couldn't finish went to Stuart the illegal immigrant Irish traveller who worked at the hostel: farewell and good luck buddy boy.
5. Took a gazillion hour trip on a greyhound bus to Vegas, the same back, then a further goodgravyisthatthetimeillion hour trip here. Bushed but I covered many, many miles.
6. Just about managed to repack my backpack to a good standard, but I swear my stuff has gotten bored and started to breed in there. Do I really need that many checked shirts?
7. Wait, I forgot I was in Texas. Of course I need that many checked shirts.
8. Discovered the hidden gems on my ipod. Thank you Squeeze. Cheers R.
9. Spent the best parts of the day in Vegas in the pool. The temperature of the water actually caused one of my balls to seek refuge in my stomach, I think.
10. Was angered by the bus driver on the way down here. After waiting for ages at one stop he finally says 'oh, yeah, this is a rest stop. You can get coffee, but we're leaving in two minutes now, so it's probably not worth it.' I wished that man more harm than was natural to wish on another human being, but it would have been amusing to see him try to get that exhaust pipe out of his rectum, before he coughed up his spleen like a warm jellyfish.
11. Received some nice compliments about these mails. Sorry to have left you alone for so long.

So that's your lot. Twice in one day? Must be the carbs I'm eating (although the other one was pretty much finished, it still counts as two). I'll be back to one mail a week if I write again tomorrow and judging by the hiking trip, followed by museums, I should have plenty to say. The kindly old gent who runs the place is a rare lad, and I've accepted his invite to a local pub tomorrow, before home for tea and scones (I swear, the guy's either 60 or has fashioned himself a new skin from the hide of a bloodhound).

See you very soon folks.

Byeloveyoubye. xx

...Well, at least I was having fun...