The title to this post is what I sought and found in Las Vegas. Many ask why I relocated to Nevada from New York. Too many surmise taxes, the weather, or crime chased me out of civilization. Not at all.
Of course, the tax rate is higher back East but services are extensive. Taxes are low out West but just looking around informs of a deficient society compared to what was left. Continue reading A Nice Soft Spot
Nothing inspires the ire of parochial Nevadans more than California. The Pacific Coast state enflames their passions, though in contrary ways.
Nevada and California, sage and eucalyptus. Continue reading Irksome Money
Valentine’s Day dumped a fine example of why I dissuade any high-tech venture curious about moving itself from a relatively expensive site to Las Vegas. This part of the Mojave suffered a power outage. One starting early Saturday afternoon and lingering in some neighborhoods into late Sunday. Who knows? Reluctant as the power company is to fully inform, the blackouts might straggle into Monday.
All because of high gales, not Hurricane Sandy.
These disruptions occur frequently enough to make them issues to consider. Continue reading My Rancid Valentine
The Singing Monument
Met a fellow staying at El Cortez. He was in his late 20s, just on the cusp of grasping the ways of the world. Or so I incorrectly presumed. Continue reading Two from Las Vegas
On Father’s Day 2019, I performed an act my own late father might’ve considered sacrilegious. I attended a Dodgers game in Chavez Ravine.
To mitigate my baseball transgression I cheered for the visitors not the home nine.
Father was a Brooklyn Dodgers man through and through. The Los Angeles Dodgers could never have engaged his rooting interest. Continue reading Keeping True
For the first time in my five years here in Nevada, the Yuletide has had a joyous feel. Not that the locals have brightened up the Mojave with glitter and approaches which correspond to the merriment derived from the period’s significance. After all, it remains bizarre seeing Christmas lights decorating palm trees. Continue reading The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
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
Part of the job requires faking civility to visitors determined to be the biggest assholes as possible. It can’t be helped. It’s in their nature. Continue reading Schmendrick
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?
This is how perception has re-formed amid the Mojave and the Southern Nevada mountains – bands like the Eagles and the Pure Prairie League sound more appropriate here than they ever did down in Arizona’s Sonora Desert and certainly back East in New York. Those guitars and keening voices cut through the Mojave’s harshness.
Although the poignancy of the bands’ ballads further emphasize the region’s emptiness, each offers relief to the barren horizon and the few figures populating it. Hmmm. Figure that out.
People often ask whether I miss New York, and if so what do I particularly miss. My pat reply is usually, “Whatever I miss was already gone before I left.”
Until recently that response sufficed because it was the only truth. Continue reading Saloons Instead of Salons