At what point beyond the Northeast Region do Americans start ceding our postures? Not physical postures, but those defining who we claim being and how our projections are received. Continue reading Land of the Least Free
Tag Archives: labor
Laboring
Laboring Americans must relearn how to roll cars. Continue reading Laboring
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
Old Paint Was a Lemon
Old Paint was wheezing harder than usual. After all the part swapping, repairs, and just general babying of that car, what finally forced my hand was a check engine light. Sure. It could’ve been a fouled sensor. Or maybe it might’ve been the first sign of the head gasket preparing to crack.
In any case, I read the yellow dashboard light as a clear warning from the gearhead gods. It became the straw which broke my camel’s back. Continue reading Old Paint Was a Lemon
First Dibs
Video poker machines and the city’s transient nature make establishing a hangout in Las Vegas difficult. The screens divert eyes and muddle hearing. A continually changing cast of barflies constantly juggles what elsewhere might be considered a roster of locals. And Las Vegas jobs with their Las Vegas schedules also add obstacles to continuity. Continue reading First Dibs
Dislocation or Resettlement?
Five years ago this week, I started the process which sped me to Las Vegas. Mine wasn’t a calculated move but one performed more through necessity. Instinctively I knew it time to leave New York because other than inertia were there any reasons to stay?
In 2013, the Quarropas I’d known, had spent my lifetime, the locale which had created me, had vanished completely. Or as I could glibly tell any Nevadans who asked, “Whatever I miss was already gone before I left.” Continue reading Dislocation or Resettlement?
Sauce for the Goose
One of the Las Vegas newspapers has an editorial page which lurches right. So far right readers should ask why columns and letters to the editor aren’t printed in Fraktur.
Given the harmful effect of Twitter on political debate, the city’s broadsheet, an at times schizophrenic news source – news remains objectively presented while opinions often harken back to those of Der Stürmer and Völkischer Beobachter – offers American reactionaries a forum through which they can mock tweets veering from their less enlightened view of our society. Thanks to Donald Trump’s current soiling the Oval Office, malcontents once rightly embarrassed to publicly demonstrate their various intellectual deficiencies may now further poison open discourse with them.
Say this about the short-fingered vulgarian he sure has tipped over a lot of rocks. Continue reading Sauce for the Goose
Thoroughly Anonymous
My last image of Perdu was a mundane one. The drug-addled, alcoholic, brain-dead swine we worked for had just admitted the company was flat-broke.
For an enterprise best known through word of mouth, throughout the industry its new name became “mud.” So many bridges were burned, including ones on drawing boards, no hope existed of any lifelines.
Solvent on Friday, tapped out on Monday. Continue reading Thoroughly Anonymous
Las Vegas Candy
Morning breaks bright, mild, and brilliant across Las Vegas. Through hustle, Lewy turned what could’ve been a nothing night into a worthwhile one. An Italian couple he drove out into the city’s farther eastern precincts certainly boosted his bottom line. Unaware he understood their baroque conversation, that Lewy also found them entertaining further improved his mood.
Lewy’s just climbed back into his taxi after stretching. Coupled with a series of isometrics that gets blood pumping and clears his mind. Unlike too many other drivers he remains somewhat fit and retains a good deal of flexibility. Image and presentation are vital components to his job.
It’s a basic human response: looks matter. First impressions bear outsized weight. Continue reading Las Vegas Candy
Chumps & Busters
The first two weekends of September were prime times to observe a Las Vegas peculiarity.
During workweeks the city hosts conventions which attract the expense account crowd. There will be other visitors as well, of course, however business people predominate.
Weekends, though, the focus shifts away from serious travelers. Las Vegas becomes the purview and playground of “Vegas for Vegas!” types. Young coastal Californians account for the greatest portion of these hordes.
No doubt the overwhelming majority of these youthful adults comport themselves inconspicuously. But this isn’t about them. This is about the oblivious boobs and braying cheapskates jamming Las Vegas Boulevard when they’re not cutting the fool inside the thoroughfare’s establishments.
I don’t know what service personnel and hoteliers call them, but I see them as chumps and busters. Continue reading Chumps & Busters