Operation Desert Casino

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Well hello again. Where the hell have I been you ask? Well let me tell you because I have some stories to tell and they are good stories indeed. This has been a busy week filled with many adventures and shinanigans some good some bad but for the most part interesting and insightful. To begin let me start with a confession: I went to Las Vegas. Yes thats right, I was there last weekend, the real life Sin City in all its majestic glory. Now for those of you concerned about my financial well being let me put your fears to rest by saying that I did not loose my shirt at the craps tables nor do I owe my Kidneys to a loan shark named Maurice. Most of my expenses were incurred from hotel charges and food. I did loose a little money at the slots but this was my first official attempt at professional gambling and its only fair that I pay some sort of initiation fee. Having said that I can say with the outmost sincerity that Vegas will not have its hands in my pockets any time soon. But I'm getting ahead of myself for this story begins with the revelation of the Phantom roommate!
Late Last friday I came home to my apartment and noticed a light on in the back room where my roommate Jay (from Montreal) sleeps. Well I went in to say hello to Jay but was instead greeted by a enormous man of 6'4 and perhaps 270lbs.
"Oh hello," I said, as I politely resisted the urge to look for a some sort of bludgoning device.
The man turned on his heels and starred down at me with big bulging eyes.
"Hello" he said, in a voice that shook dust from the ceiling tiles and blew my hair back.
The man extended his hand towards me and said,
"My name's Alan"
"Evan," I said, as I watched my hand get swallowed up into his gargantuan paw.
"So your the mysterious fourth roommate"
"Yes" he thundered.

We then proceeded to exchange stories and backgrounds and I discovered the reason for Alan's eradic comings and goings. Alan had recently been discharged from the U.S. army after serving a tour in Iraq . He'd been stationed outside of Bahgdad in a unit that was responsible for the communications of the 5th army out of Germany (at least I think thats what he said). Alan had only recently been accepted into USC. Unlike myself, Jay and Fernando, Alan was a full time student majoring in History and had nothing to do with the film program. Well to bring things back on track, Alan had moved into the apartment weeks before we arrived and had found himself quite bored without any roommates so he went home to live with his parents who were only 40 miles away in the San Fernando Valley and had been checking in on the apartment periodically to drop things off and see if anyone new had arrived. So mystery solved, but thats not the end of this story. When Jay got home we told Alan of your interest in seeing Vegas, Alan said he loved Vegas and had some friends there who might be able to get us some deals, on top of that he was willing to drive! Well that was enough convincing for us. This also presented an additional opportunity for me since I had a cinematography assignment that weekend I could take along my equipment and shoot some scenes of the Mojave desert. Fernando decided not to go with us because he said his parents would be coming up from Brazil in two weeks and they wanted to go to Vegas with him. Incidently I found out that Fernando's father owns and operates a large cheese factory in Sao Paulo, helping to explain the curious variety of dairy products in our refrigerator.
Now I won't go into too much detail about Las Vegas because its the type of place that more ore less defies explaination. I found the drive up fascinating mostly because I've always had a strange obsession with deserts. The median temperature for that area was about a 112' degrees F. In between Los Angeles and the border with Nevada there is virtually nothing but scorched mountains, dry shrubs and an In and Out burger.
The entire city of Las Vegas is like an enormous theme park designed specifically for adults. We stayed at the New York, New York which is a massive hotel designed to look like the New York City Skyline (sans WTC). It has its own rollercoaster and the casino floor is a complete recreation of New York city streets. We also popped into some of the other big name hotels, Mandalay Bay and the MGM Grand were right next door, we took a look in The Excalibur, and just behind us there was Cesar's Palace, the Monte Carlo and the Bellagio (of Ocean's 11 fame, that fountain really is cool). We also took a tour through the older part of Vegas, the Freemont street experience, where the older, tackier, and most definitly seedier Casinos are located. This was where you could find some of Vegas's more depressing sights like the 1cent slot machines and the tired old women who have been sitting at them for the last 17 years. Of course if you absolutly have to have a 99cent shrimp cocktail and you love being hit on by 65 year old hookers this is the place to be. So to make a long story short and to skip over some of the less exciting details of my trip I will finish by saying that I survived Las Vegas and probably won't return unless I happen find myself in the type of financial situaiton that would allow me to blow my nose with $100 bills and clean my ears with diamonds. Suffice it to say Las Vegas is not for the weak of wallet, and certinaly no playground for students. Fortunatly I was able to get some beautiful shots of the Mojave just as the sun was coming up on our way back so the trip was very much worth it. Curiously, since our return, Alan has disappeared again, but then who can blame him if he can get home cooked meals just a few miles away, and speaking of meals, I have to go prepare one, which is to say I have to ask the good people at Wendy's if they would make me a triple with cheese.
Coming up next.....The Jay Leno Incident and the discovery of a very deranged Bob Saget.

- Evan

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