I awoke at five AM on Friday morning. It's a typical time for me to get up, having been converted from a night person to a morning person several years back. But on this Friday morning, there seemed to be the same kind of anticipation in the air that one feels as one is about to begin a long vacation.
Over the prior month, I had been working 12 hour days during the week, and even longer on the weekends. Don't get me wrong. The hard work felt good, especially knowing that I was one of the lucky ones to maintain solid employment during the W recession. I took advantage of the Clinton economy to add two advanced degrees to my resume, and changed careers. Now, lately, I've been working so hard I almost had to cancel my trip to BartFest. I found compromise, and promised I'd be back the following Monday, instead of Tuesday. This meant I had to give up my day of rest, and return to work in a BartFest induced state of rubble.
I rolled into Vegas at about 3:30, made a quick tour of the Vegas strip, and then headed for the hotel. The only thing of note about the trip down to Vegas is that when I started in the morning I listened to a little news on the radio. They were talking about anti-war protests going on around the country, and the national news did the typical, "there are only about 300 estimated protesters in Washington, DC." The whole way, in between, I listened to some CD mixes of my favorite music. Then, when I got close to Vegas, I turned on the radio again. Now the news was saying, "the police are reporting that 700 protesters were arrested today in Washington, DC...." I realized that small band of protesters must have been so unruly that the police had to arrest them 2.33 times, each.
Now, I have to say that I'm not really a Vegas
person. I'm not a gambler, and Vegas shows are not really to my tastes.
I also don't care much for crowds, which is one
of the reasons I couldn't get away from LA freeways fast enough when
I decided that my days as an actor were over.
Of course, I then returned to the San Francisco Bay area, and the Clinton
economy temporarily transformed the bay area into an LA in training.
But the point is, I had no idea where to stay, so I
got a room at the Frontier through Hotels.com.
The north end of the strip, where the Frontier is, is not yet refurbished like the south end, so the Frontier is still (let's say) rustic. And, as it turns out, hotels.com is apparently one of those services that rent all of the rooms that a hotel has trouble getting people to take. So my room was located up the back entrance, between the elevator and the trash chute. It did, however, have a lovely view of the back parking lot, and the local concrete aqueduct. It also had an air conditioner that sounded, I imagine, something like a NASA wind tunnel. You had to turn it off in order to hear the television, but hell - I wasn't there to watch TV anyway.
I took a brief nap, and then caught a shuttle
over to the Hard Rock. I was curious about what BartCoppers looked
like.
I can only paraphrase the immortal words of Linda
Tripp here. You are all just like me! I have never seen
a more mainstream looking group of people. Of course, one should
always preface a statement such as this with,
"I live in San Francisco."
I also have to say that I was never more comfortable
with a group of "strangers" in my entire life. I also have to preface
this statement with the same, "I live in San
Francisco." But in this case, as San Francisco is probably the most
tolerant city
in the world, the preface actually comes down
as an exclamation point, and not a qualifier. You people are a delight,
and
I'm glad to have met all of you.
There promised to be two people in the crowd that
I'd met before. One was Christian Livemore, who had a last minute
mishap and wasn't able to attend. Heal quickly, Christian.
But Isaac was there as I knew he would be. I had the wonderful experience
of hanging out with Isaac and Tally Briggs in The City when they joined
me to hear Vincent Bugliosi speak during his "None Dare Call It Treason"
tour. As wonderful as it was to see Isaac again, and to congratulate
him on the excellent articles he's been writing about racism in Minnesota
police departments, I'm still disappointed that Tally couldn't be there.
She and I have a common background, similar political
views and, as it has turned out, a few common acquaintances.
She's a whole lot cuter than Isaac, and she is
a Vegas person whom I would have relied on to show me around.
Tally wouldn't come because she had prior cruise tickets. She would have canceled the cruise except that the line upgraded her cabin to a suite, and she didn't want to pass on the opportunity. Whenever I think of Tally on the cruise, I think of that mock Detective magazine cover that BC posted awhile back. You know the one. A woman is sunning herself, half naked, on the private deck of her cruise line suite, and Ashcroft, suspended from the side of the ship, is peering around the railing, spying on her. I sent that jpg to Tally prior to BartFest, and it really creeped her out. Unfortunately, not enough to change her mind about attending.
At the Pink Taco, I had fun talking with anybody
and every body who was there. When the tour bus pulled out, and we
had recovered Isaac from being shaken down by
the Pink Taco, I don't think anyone even looked outside of the bus.
Everyone seemed to be enjoying each other's company too much to be distracted
by bright lights.
After the tour, not sure where to go or what to
do, I bummed a cab ride with Mr. and Mrs. BC and Isaac back to the Rio.
Now that's where I should have stayed. I looked around for awhile,
and then called Isaac to go up to his room for a visit.
Mr. and Mrs. BC had already retired for the night.
As it turns out, Isaac, having just taken an allergy pill, was doing battle
with the Sand Man himself, and the Sand Man was
winning. So-you have to get the full impact of this picture.
Here I was,
the morning person, after having spent some nine
and a half hours driving through a dessert, in Vegas, somewhere between
9:30 and 10PM on a Friday night, but I was all alone, and left to my own
devices because everyone else had gone to bed. Something told me
that it wasn't supposed to be that way.
Rather than catch a cab back to the Frontier, I decided to get some evening exercise by losing myself in the crowd on the Vegas strip. I won't go into detail here, but the rest of my evening, until about 2:00AM, when I finally returned to my room and turned on the wind tunnel, I developed a finer appreciation of Henry Miller.
I didn't get up until about 10:00 on Saturday. I basically amused myself by trying to find interesting things to do indoors to avoid the heat. I won $100.00 playing blackjack at the five dollar tables, and tipped the dealer well. I found out that most of Las Vegas is underground. I spent some time sitting in cafes and doing some people watching (an interesting pass-time that I learned as an actor), and there may be no better place than Vegas for that activity.
My friend, Brian arrived in town late that afternoon.
He was on his way to Vegas for his son's birthday anyway, so I encouraged
him to take part in BartFest, knowing him to be sympathetic to the cause.
And at the appointed time, Brian
and I journeyed over to the Rio. Entering
the festivity suite, we parted company and mingle with the full compliment
of committed progressives.
One of my many failings is that I'm terrible at remembering names of people I've only met once or twice. BartFest certainly didn't cure the affliction, but I will never forget the pleasure of being in a room full of educated, savvy, well read, and, not just interesting, but interested people. As a group, we all seemed to have a desire to remember this particular point in time. We want to remember where we were and what we were doing during the great battle to restore democracy in America.
Because Bart's party had a distinctive lack of noise makers, I joined other party goers out in the hall to set off the hallway fire alarms. There was a dandy alarm right outside the door of the suite, and if we blew smoke at it from just the right angle.... Soon we had all the noise we could have wished for, and extra security for the party, too!
My only complaint is that Bart promised me 12
year old, single malt scotch, because I don't generally drink tequila.
All the open bar had was Dewar's. It's
an acceptable blend to mix with a soda, but hardly suitable for the occasion.
My only regret is that I didn't have the opportunity
to speak with Mrs. BartCop. She's rather becoming a legend in her
quiet way. It is somewhat amazing that
a person who prefers to remain quietly in the shadows can develop such
a strong presence merely by the respect and deference that her husband
off-handedly pays her. Perhaps I could have introduced
myself but, in a way, I also felt that I did
her the greater honor by respecting her privacy. It is my sincere
hope that I read
the situation correctly, and that she did not
assume me to be stand-offish.
I didn't stay for the roulette spin. Instead
I told BC that if my number came up, I would donate the proceeds toward
his
future staff and/or radio show. Certain
that once the party descended to the casino, people would begin to disperse
into
the neon Vegas streets, Brian and I headed off
into the night to see what trouble two single men could get themselves
into.
I'm not sure when I'll visit Vegas again.
I have an invitation for the end of August, but twice within a month may
be
too much for me. Of course, it won't be
too long now, thanks to pResident Chimp, that Vegas will glow at night
without the neon. So maybe I should accept that
invitation while there is still time to view, and remember what
creative folks can do with artificial lighting.
To all my fellow BartCoppers... A shot of
the Highland's finest.
Cheers!