Fear, but no loathing in Las Vegas

Doomey is pulling me hither and thither, and all I wanted to do was drink some whiskey and scope out the local talent, yes? Perhaps make a proposition to the lovely Mz. Jennifer McCarthy which she couldn't refuse. I've got the muscle to make these things happen. So, anyhow, was rather tanked at someplace with many big screens, when I decided to leave. Doomey was preoccupied with something, lord knows what, as he stared pie-eyed at the infernal green and red numbers of the tote.

Green and red numbers. Ah, Christmas in Vegas. I found myself on the street again, without so much as a friendly escort or habidashery in sight. And all the while the green and red numbers where multiplying in my burdensome conscious. Two days hence, the symbolic birth of our lord, though the Persian mystic Mithras would have some complaint as to the co-opting of his birth to quell the pagan ideologies crossing over into Constantine-dom. And lo, did I feel a gravitation pulling me thus, like the force of an imploded star beckoning me from amidst the exhaust and hubbub of the strip. Toddling, listing and whole-heartedly trying to keep down the $1.99 steak and eggs I'd ingested some time ago in the Ghost Bar, the imbalance of my rectitude did pull me out of the mainstream and onto a road less traveled. Eating gravel, for I had somehow landed face down in a strip mall parking lot, some cretin with coke bottle glasses and thin stringy long hair told me I was disrupting his business. Once upright again, I saw his business was a so-called adult entertainment racket with the accompanying paraphernalia and get ups. Well, far be it from me to impede the flow of commerce, and I was about to go inside, when this mini-van pulls up with the King's edifice emblazoned there upon its sideboard. The wheels did skid in the gravel and a bevy of Nikon-toting Nipponese tourist types flooded out and bee lined it to the as-of-yet non-descript building next door. Which, to my surprise and edification was an homage to the King!

Let me tell you, the choice was then clear. Save the whips and cock extensions for the Pharisees, I quickly about-faced and made my way into the rarified clime of Elvis-a-Rama!

Was lucky enough to come in just as the King himself was starting another performance, a young lad from Texas with a striking resemblance to a young, very young King. Full lips, lush black flip of hair, gentle eyes, and a hunk a hunka burnin' love. I engaged my ass in the nearest chaisse lounge and ordered a mai tais, thinking to couch myself in the long past revery cast by the special Elvis From Honolulu, and set myself up to be transported to a better place and time.

Suspicious Minds, man. Thankyouverymuch, baby. Teddy Bear. In the Ghetto. And as the river flows, onward to the sea, man. Some things were meant to be. Wise men say. And the king of kings had those too, but Elvis still speaks in Las Vegas, somehow, if only through these Texas interlocuter. I was duly amazed.

And so it goes, now if I can make my way back to the Palms. Maybe I can catch a rickshaw along the way.