Category Archives: Lost Wages

Lost Wages

The Full Vegas

Some Las Vegas stories I’ve posted conclude in downbeat fashion. But like the fables of old or even older Greek myths, morals, or at least lessons, are left behind.

I don’t mean any of the sunnier experiences recounted on these pages. Most of those highlighted reminiscences of old Las Vegas. The mobbed-up times that fueled the city’s luster. When visitors, no, life here in its entirety, had style; when the performers were legendary, and the ambient music better.

Stories from the spear carriers. The background personnel who made the city hum and the guests in it sing praises.

Waitresses. Bartenders. Cigarette girls. Showgirls. Strippers. Bell hops. Sparring partners. Housekeepers and maintenance men. Even a go-fer or two for one-time long-ago heavies. Continue reading The Full Vegas →

Lost Wages

Lead Eggs from a Golden Goose

Heard a fellow bar patron who recently brayed “Las Vegas is too big to fail!” Yeah, he’d been overserved. In other cities, the bartender or server would’ve cut him off. But this being Las Vegas as long as this patron had cash and regularly slid twenties into the bar top video poker machine and steadily kept losing, he was golden. Continue reading Lead Eggs from a Golden Goose →

Baboon America, Great Books, Lost Wages, Observed, Struwwelpeter for Adults

Random December

This last post of 2024 could be an homage to John Dos Passos. The early Dos Passos. Before life soured him rightward into becoming a reactionary. Until then, let’s consider him a “lost generation” writer alongside Ernest Hemingway. As did Hemingway, Dos Passos also reported from Spain during its 1936-39 Civil War. There’s where the pair diverged. Before the war, Dos Passos had established solid progressive cred with his 1925 novel Manhattan Transfer. He followed that with his USA trilogy (titles published in 1930, 1932, 1936, respectively) comprised of The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money. Throughout his USA fiction, he dropped in biographical elements and reportage. No need for fiction in 2024. Just real life that should sicken conscientious Americans. What follows has been plucked from a month of Slow Boat Media social media observations and commentary. It is who we’ve allowed ourselves to become. Continue reading Random December →

Lost Wages, Struwwelpeter for Adults

In a Different Desert at 65

Now into being retired for several months, I did a few things instinctively experts suggest. First among them, I didn’t splurge.

Free of punching any timeclock, I didn’t travel. As much as I wanted to beat as many July and August weekends of Mojave Desert summer heat and hit the Coast – particularly Hermosa Beach and Oceanside – I deferred. Prudence demanded I first evaluate my new financial circumstances.

If I got deeper in the hole at this stage of life, escaping would be difficult without regular income through regular hours. I have no urge to return to the daily grind. Continue reading In a Different Desert at 65 →

Great Books, Lost Wages, Observed

Useless Clouds

August is the Mojave Desert’s most challenging month.

While unavoidably sweltering, it’s generally less torrid than July. August actually starts letting residents kind of imagine autumnal respite in ways July absolutely forbids.

Until the last several summers, July counted as the “monsoon month.” Indeed, rain in quantifiable measures wetted if not outright soaked this region. Away from Las Vegas in the desert proper one might’ve believed he or she heard the parched dirt greedily gulp whatever rain had fallen. Continue reading Useless Clouds →