Las Vegas, NV (2)

Maybe I took it easy because I knew that I was going to force myself to tell you all the details of last night, but last night was fairly innocent.

I figured if I was going to gamble at all I would at least justify doing it by only gambling the money I made playing music on Las Vegas Blvd. So I played across the street from Caesar's Palace and had a great time, made an enormous 3 dollars. After about 30 minutes a guy in a suit and a police officer told me to pack my stuff and move down the road because I was not in a public performance sector. I asked where I was allowed to play and they said "Anywhere you see the guys flipping the cards for the night clubs". So picture it, here I am playing guitar and singing in the middle of a line of about 15 guys along the sidewalk giving out these cards promoting strip clubs. I got some interesting attention, to say the least, but not a lot of money. One of the card guys tossed a dime in my guitar case and asked if I knew "American Pie". I said sorry that I did not. I wished I did.

I gave up after a while and walked the strip. A glorious idea came to me as I was walking. I could just pop into this Walgreens to buy alcohol instead of paying the overpriced bars and casinos. To my dismay, this particular Walgreens did not sell alcohol, but I did buy some bagels and a jar of peanut butter for the next couple of days. Nothing felt better than walking down the strip, eating bagels and scooping PB out with my index finger. I did find a little shop that sold beer at a more reasonable price, so I bought a couple Heinekens. After my parents got out of the Cirque Du Soleil I met them at the Carnaval Courtyard for some live music and live drinking, in true American fashion. It was good.

Now it was off to gamble away my four dollars. My dad wanted to play Craps, but it was a 10 dollar minimum so he fronted me some money. I won 40 bucks, and to this moment I have no idea how because I still don't understand a lick about Craps. My dad and I discussed philosophies of different natures. To convey the level of my intoxication, at some point I explained to him I am not afraid of death. He was soon tired of this nonsense and off to bed. I played the slot machines with my 4 bucks that I made. Here was my strategy: I told myself that as soon as I am up, no matter how little, I had to cash out and move to a new machine. You could commonly find me at the cashier's desk turning in my slip for $1.12 or $1.26. I never really got anywhere with this strategy, though I didn't expect to. I still have a couple dollars left today, plus the 40 I won which I may go gamble as soon as I am done pushing away the majority of my blog readers by typing out all of this useless information in somewhat nauseating detail. After the slots, I stumbled out into the streets to play some more music. It was mostly a failure (especially since I played with a broken string from earlier in the night), and to say it was a failure in comparison to my usual outings really says a lot about the atrocity that is my street performances. However, while I was packing up three beautiful, gorgeous, heavenly (remember, I am drunk) gals told me not to pack up and to play a song they can sing along with. We made up some lyrics and sang a few songs. They asked for my autograph so I wrote some poems on $1.12, $0.76, and $1.26 cash out slips to give to them. I hope they got the money, because I'm sure the poems are worth much less.

Today was back to square one for me, in terms of my spiritual journey. I gorged at a buffet, slept until noon, and payed $30 for one of those "Aqua Massage" outside of a mall. The rest of the day has been great though, just drinking beers and talking with my Dad. Headed down to the casino now, dinner, and then the Greyhound for Kingman, AZ.