Las Vegas

When I was in Chico, Quinn told me an interesting story. Chico is a huge university town with tens of thousands of students. His ladyfriend Karisha is incredibly in tune with the natural energies and Quinn says that she suffers bouts of stress every December and January because she absorbs all the tension of the students who are frantically preparing for their exams.

I have always believed in the auras surrounding people so this story made sense to me. It made twice as much sense after Vegas. The second I got into the city, I felt irritable and annoyed. I needed an immediate drink to take this desperate edge off and then a bunch more to keep it off. I think I was absorbing the negative energy of the city.

The place abounds with pawn shops and loan joints and these places that will give you money if you sign over your car to them. My first night there, I was amazed by how many beautiful young women were sitting alone in the casino bars at two in the morning until I realized they were all working. Maybe gambling and prostitutes sounds glamorous in a lad’s magazine, but it is desperate and hollow when you see it up close. That part of Vegas has a total bad vibe to it and trying to mask it with the fake Eiffel Tower and all that other Disneylandesque crap is like putting lipstick on a decomposing corpse.

The only positive part of the city’s vibe was that when you encountered something good it stood out because of the contrast. That was the case with the Reading Room, the bookstore where I had an appearance. It is in the Mandalay Place casino and was put there because the casino’s former general manager was a literature nut who attended the writer’s program at the University of Iowa. The bookstore is a haven of sanity amid the gambling madness and it is staffed by tremendously kind souls. This is a picture of two of those souls, Michele and Heather. Sadly, there eyes appear demon red, but that is my damn lack of photography skills, not a reflection on them. They are both beautiful young ladies.



All in all, a bookstore in a casino is a pretty odd experience. My picture was up on the main casino neon board, alongside the Wayne Newtons and Howie Mandells. Just a few steps from the bookstore door were jangling rows of slots. (This is a fuzzy picture of Will in front of them. More on him soon.)



But, another tip of the cap to the power of a bookstore: once inside and browsing the shelves, the entire casino disappeared ...