Beer and Bloating in Las Vegas

We were somewhere around Zion, on the edge of Utah, when my bowels began to lose hold. I remember saying something like "I feel a bit heavy-assed, maybe we should pull over." When all of the sudden the car was filled with the most rancous treachery one could suffer into imagination. Twas a foul ball, though there was nothing solid about it.

4 hours and a clean pair of shorts later, we had arrived in Vegas. We fully believed that the land that greed built could be reduced to more reasonable standards with proper portions of compassion, intoxicants and the gospel of Bootsy Collins.

Vegas, or course, is a city very resilient to mild acts of hooliganry, although they defend themselves in a manner quite different than their mormon neighbor. Their strategy is Soma, not Big Brother. Their crowd-control is self-induced. They encourage you to drink 18 well-priced Tecates out of your backpack. Then, once inebriated, they flood your senses with $6.99 rib buffets, costumed ass, lights and greed-ticklers.

Night one was a demoralizing victory by Vegas. We started well, even considered eating at Denny's, but were soon pumping bills into slot machines, over-tipping bartenders, and pumping semen into prostitutes. It was friday, half off blowjob night, and we just weren't strong enough.

So we retreated to lake Mead to regroup in our tents. The city then through us a slow-ball; a nice fat opportunity to start some trouble. Midnight was far past the curfew of the Vegas Bay RV park, and the place was ripe for misadventure. but these people have been sucked dry. The city had robbed them of their will to do anything meaningful with their lives or even find a decent camping spot. We opted not to kick a dead goat, and fell fast asleep.

The music festival reenergized us. Slightly Stoopid, Blackalicious, String Cheese, Atmosphere, Kweli, Phil Lesh, The Shins, Primus, and Beck. Our tanks were full of vigor, and we used it well. Mike got on stage with Dave Matthews Band, feigning Mike Gordon, though was immediately discovered after attempting to play the keyboard. As the security guards closed in, he gave us a preview of this winter's professional snowboarding debut, by hucking a 360 off a speaker and lodging two fingers deep inside the Dave. The crowd went wild. Score after 2 days, Team Bootsy:1, Vegas:1.

Day 3 was also packed with beautiful music and even more beautiful costume-clad festival goers. Spearhead, slutty cop, Ween, slutty red riding hood, Lyrics Born, slutty school-girl, The Meters, Digable Planets, Trey, Flaming Lips, Jack Johnson, Widespread Panic and hundreds of slutty fairies. THe funk of the Meters took me to a happy place that served a mean Whiskey-Dew, and I was ready to terrorize the old strip in my Rastafarian Priest attire, as we had deemed the main strip far too powerful. The drink flowed freely from the backpack into the mouths, but we were slowed downn by a powerful security guard in the form of some old lonely gambler who fired some thirty opiniated trivia questions at us, such as "who is 2nd in command of the 21st century's blues revival?" We tried to rebound from the disheartening delay, but it had sucked out a lot of life. My idea of eating a bunch of poker chips, throwing up on a blackjack table, and trying to play them only lead to a near asphixiation and throwing up in a trash-can. Vegas 2, Team Bootsy 1.

We had one more day left, halloween as it were, and were hoping for a tie. The plan was to infiltrate the heart of Vegas as one of its own, and we had the elvis wig and glasses to make it happen. Unfortuntaly, Elvis is dead now, even in Vegas. DANNY GANS is the way of the future. We were sadly dated. Losing hope, we activated plan B, jumping into the water during the treasure island Pirate Show, but were again distracted by a copious amount of on-stage T&A and backpack Tecates. I jumped in anyway, but the show was already over, the asians had walked away, and only asphyxiation and vomiting resulted once more. Vegas 3, Team Bootsy 1. We drove home defeated. Concellation prizes went to The Meters, Beck and The Flaming Lips, who rocked great shows, as well as Mike's fingers, who went somewhere 15 yr old girls can only continue to dream about.