Karl Klockars

So, we’re going to Vegas.

It is a decent indication of my current mindset that I didn’t immediately set out to recreate any portion of the Hunter Thompson “Vegas book,” as he called it.  I will not be getting locked into a serious drug collection, nor will I be deferring to the tendency is to push it as far as you can.

There will be no hotel room destruction, there will be no cruising of a rented convertible Cadillac Eldorado down the strip (okay, I’d be fine with this one).  There will be mild-to-moderate intake of intoxicants.  There will be sloth.*  There hopefully will be a bar that you can swim up to, since that’s how I define luxury.

There won’t be any strip clubs or prostitutes, there won’t be any high roller rooms and there won’t be any waking up in a gargantuan suite with a tiger in the bathroom and a baby in the closet.  You know what there will be?  You know what we’re looking forward to the most?

Being bored.

The Las Vegas Department of Tourism would likely be terrified to hear that someone, at some point, might be bored inside the confines of Sin City.  They’ve spent millions and millions of dollars trying to convince the nation that they’re no longer the family-friendly Vegas of about 2000-2003 (rough unresearched estimate) and that at no point should anyone be unnecessarily bored or unstimulated.

Were they wise, they’d appropriate the ideas behind those Corona ads because lazing around doing nothing is far preferable to getting accidentally married or getting a social disease from a coat check girl or a barback or waking up with a tattoo on my face.

There will be a bare minimum of gambling, since that’s what you do there.  And some walking around enjoying the fact that it’s not 110 degrees in the desert.  And I’ll probably start a collection of prostitute menus that are handed to me on the strip.  (They still do that, right?  That’s what I always heard.)  Other than that…nada.

In this version of America that we live in, the only thing worth doing is more of what you’re already doing.  You’re busy doing X?  You’d be worth more doing X+Y.  You’re multitasking doing D, E, and F?  Well, get yourself a G and an H and now you’re really talking!  And when you’re watching your full alphabet of duties go swirling down the drain in this economy of ours, sometimes you just have to say “eff it all” and get on a plane and go to the Great American Oasis of Misfit Toys.

The most debaucherous thing that can be done nowadays is to do nothing. And that’s what we’re going to do.  We’re going to do nothing in the hotel room.  We’re going to do nothing out in the pool area.  We’re going to do nothing in the restaurants.  We’re going to do nothing back at the bar.  And then we’re going to go back up to the room and do nothing.  Okay, maybe then we’ll do something.  But very slowly.

When you go to Vegas I’m imagining that everything is organized to get you to DO THIS and DO THAT and SEE THIS SHOW and SPEND THIS MONEY and OH GOD IF YOU GO HOME WITHOUT DOING THIS YOUR FRIENDS WILL ALL LAUGH AT YOU.  And when you go to Vegas, everyone is very concerned about whether or not you’re going to beat the house, or if the house will beat you.  (The fact that Las Vegas exists at all is testament to the eternal ability of the house to kick your ass.)  The only way to truly beat the House in Vegas is to not let it get you into the game.

Admittedly, the only pure way to beat the House is to never set foot in Vegas at all.  But at some point you have to open yourself up to the abyss and see how much it stares back into you.  There is a great possibility that I will come back with a fanny pack and a floral tshirt and a gaping hole in my bank account where the meager earnings I’ve eked together used to be.  Time will tell what will happen.  But I have faith in my ability to do nothing for just a few days.

Soon enough it’ll be back to the grind and get this done and file this and push these buttons and make these phone calls and talk to these people and earn your food pellets and ring these bells and so on and so forth.  But for a few days there will be a blessed island of inactivity.  And when we return and all our co-workers and friends and acquaintances ask what we did?

It will be the greatest thing ever to say…”Nothing.  Nothing at all.”

*This is the followup to the fine film There Will Be Blood.