Category Archives: Observed

Social Eye Rolling

The calamity of Trumpvirus has made me glad my parents aren’t alive today to witness our disgrace. Only father’s and mother’s astonishment might’ve surpassed their disappointment in us.

As I’ve written elsewhere, by the time father and mother reached 27 and 16, respectively, they endured the Jim Crow South, the Depression, and World War II. After those preliminaries, they formed the devoted black masses who broke the second-class barriers which suppressed the truest of all Americans. Continue reading Social Eye Rolling

Shallow Thanks

Once again, that most American of holidays is upon us. Thanksgiving. That day may be our finest national holidays because it commemorates nothing. Nor does it beg solemnity for anything.

Doesn’t Thanksgiving typify us? The fourth Thursday in November just insists we wallow in mindless gluttony while passionately pursuing socio-political points as we solidify family grudges. Continue reading Shallow Thanks

People Who Parlay

Perhaps the man/woman parlays which follow were just as bald back in New York. There, though, unlike here in Las Vegas, the couples involved are more discreet.

The Mojave Mecca’s transient nature permits the sort of convention flouting which would make proper Easterners recoil. Of course Westerners could claim by their openness they’re unbound by rank hypocrisy. Continue reading People Who Parlay

Shades from the Eleventh Hour

A few weeks ago while rummaging through the Mojave, dumb luck delivered me to an odd spot. Somewhere amid the desert’s Joshua trees rather than near habitation I saw a simple cross stark against the sky upon a granite outcropping. This was a World War I monument. Continue reading Shades from the Eleventh Hour

Modern Horrors

Could the sharing economy produce a new line of horror stories? After all, its basis tosses to the wind every caution under which older sensible Americans were raised.

Don’t get into strangers’ cars. Don’t let just anybody into your home.

So what are the two attractions best fueling the quasi-barter economy? Gig drivers and homeowners turning into hostel keepers. Continue reading Modern Horrors

Distressing Displacements

Was the summer heat so relentless in Southern Arizona, in the Sonoran Desert, as it is in a Las Vegas set amidst the Mojave? Just as likely. Possibly even more so. The Sonora sits at a lower altitude. Its desert classification aside, it’s also a less arid ecosystem than the Mojave.

Youth, accompanied by more involved living, frequent insobriety, and greater disregard of nuisances like heat and lack of sleep, probably registered those Arizona Augusts on some lower discomfort scale. The escapades immersed in then must’ve somewhat negated the arduous climate.

Almost five years living in Las Vegas and I’ve learned to evade a trap that snares too many willing natives and long-time residents. I’ve managed to look through the transients, deadbeats, and bums littering the street corners and raised medians. Continue reading Distressing Displacements