Dreaming in Las Vegas

I was just in Las Vegas about a week ago. It was Christmas weekend.

S.H.E., my favorite Chinese pop group, was there in all their cute, unpolished glory. Yes, they really did sing their own songs as proven by Ella's sudden brain fart, forgetting her opening lyrics to the song, "only lonely." I am very satisfied with the experience. Forever will there be wonderful memories of Hebe's nervousness and bad dancing, Selina's beauty and personal wave to ME in the audience, and amsuing background dancers in funny costumes with bubbles, confetti, and fireworks. It was a night of entertainment to remember for the rest of my life; if only as an outpouring of teenage celebrity obsession that never took grip of me in the past. Celebrity chasing is a fun hobby, but it can only go so high before its meaningnessless hits me. At this point I feel as if I've gone as far as I would like to. This was, of course, the highlight of my two day journey.

At one point in the concert the three girls giddily exclaimed how honored and humbled they were to be performing at the MGM Grand, on a stage where so many other great international celebrities performed before them. It was something they never dreamed would happen. It would seem dreams come true for some. I pray they'll have bigger dreams than that as they move out of their pop star lives.

The rest of the trip was a gloriously eye-opening yet disturbingly back-breaking experience. Las Vegas is called "sin city" for a reason. Most interestingly because the sin that is so pervasive and also so acceptable. On the same streets littered with hooker ads and porn magazines walks hordes of families with children as small as 6 or 7. I realized at that point that I had to make a distinction between the space itself and the people who were in it. The space screams decadence and overspending, it is dedicated to the frivelous use of the economic power we own as Americans. I firmly believe there is no place on the face of the planet that is as hedonistically celebrated as Las Vegas. Many of the people on the other hand, are but average American tourists aiming to catch a glimpse of life in excess. More hopes and dreams invested in the wrong place if you ask me.

Jerry and I ate at a Grand Buffet at the MGM for lunch. It was grand as was advertized, but also expensive. I've lost interest in buffets in general. I'm fast becoming a 'quality' over 'quantity' kind of person. I bumped into an old acquintance from high school there as well. He didn't seem any different. I wonder If I seemed any different to him. He said he was going into the Navy. I'm going to China.

Later, we ate a much more modest supper at a local Denny's just a few hundred feet from the MGM Grand. There we engaged in a quick conversation with a single mother waitress about to get off work. She sat behind us, nibbliing at her carrot cake while smoking a cigarette. (Jerry and i had chosen to sit in the smoking section because it was a shorter wait.) The waitress spoke with us about her two kids, how she was hoping to go back to school for a degree in psychology to help kids who grew up in alcoholic homes. She said she didn't want kids to have to go through the same things she did when she was small. Like life, she was a grand example of hope and desperation co-existing. I pray she fulfills her dream. We need more people doing things that matter.

What else is sad? Every block on the strip you'll encounter a group of hispanics handing out flyers. What kind of flyers? The kind that have lots of naked women on them with phone numbers. It is depressing to see a middle aged woman wearing a red apron that says "Girls delivered straight to your house." I was deeply broken by every encounter because I knew none of these hispanic men or women cared to do what they were doing, advertising for hookers. They probably didn't have much of choice. People have to make a living somehow. What kind of dreams do they live with?

And did I gamble? Yes, i played some slots with my change and I attempted to play some poker. I was dissapointed to find that the buy ins were much higher than I was willing to pay. Won a free deck of cards though... I was hoping for the Porsch.

All those flashy lights? Just a distraction. Pay closer attention, look around, Las Vegas stinks of death and desperation.

By the end of our second night, Jerry and I had enough. We retreated to a movie theater and watched "Meet the Fockers," to escape our depression and anger.

It is ironic that the space is in the middle of a desert, it certainly feels dry. Fredrick Buechner says that lust is like dying of thirst while excessively drinking salt water (my own paraphrase). Indeed, I would not be dissapointed if Las Vegas was wiped off the face of the planet. Just make sure to get all those dumb numbed, innocent tourist families out of there first.

Speaking of being wiped off the planet, as I packed my bags to go home Sunday night I happened upon CNN's first reports of the devestation in South Asia. I am as desensitized as the next person, so i sighed at the tragedy and continued to pack, not realizing at the time the full implications of the event. There I was in the mecca of wealth glamour as thousands of people fell to nature's wrath. I still feel sick about that.

I needed to come to Las Vegas to see with my own eyes what can come to be if we so excessively 'follow our American dreams.' I want to follow a different kind of dream. The kind that helps children growing up in alcoholic homes grow up whole, the kind that reaches out to the thousands of broken on the shorelines of the world in grace.

Current state of Spirit: Shock. The shock of a life in transition is hitting me. I'm about to enter my last semester of college ever, planning for new things and saying goodbye to the old.