Vegas Baby!
In which I don't spend a single dollar on gambling, but still manage to throw away money.
I got out of the car in front of The Plaza late on Saturday night, and I could hear the commotion from Fremont Street behind me. Inside the main doors, the voice of Trent from SWINGERS started rattling around in my head as I passed a row of casino tables on my way to the front desk.
“Oh Mikey you don't want all that ‘Pirates Of The Caribbean’ horseshit, or the ‘Rock and Roll Grunge Tip.’ Guys like you and me gotta kick it here, old school.”
The Plaza is in old Las Vegas—downtown and away from the “Pirates of the Caribbean horseshit” that is the Strip. As much as it may try to rebrand itself, “old school” doesn’t fit the description. It may have been that in 1996, when Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau were wandering around in their suits, but those days are long gone. It just feels old now. It’s still a very different feel from the strip, but a grimier version.
Last weekend I went down to see Manchester United play at Allegiant Stadium, as part of their U.S. preseason tour. That was the crux of the trip, and I planned it with two other United-fan friends of mine. We went back and forth via group text for over a month about where we were staying, what we were going to do, and how we were getting there. Ultimately, we all ended up at different places, staying for different amounts of time, through different modes of transportation. Byron and Paddy both brought their kids, which necessitated different needs for everyone. Paddy and his kids flew down, and stayed in Henderson, away from all the madness. Byron and his brother—each with two kids in tow—stayed on the strip, but at the far end, somewhere with adjoining rooms, and amenities for four teenagers.
I stayed at The Plaza because it was cheap, and within walking distance to Tacotarian and a couple of cool coffee shops in the Arts District. Fremont Street, where all the old downtown casinos and hotels are, is about a mile away from the Arts District which feels like a secret third version of Las Vegas. Version One of course, is the Strip, where all the huge casinos live, with their giant labyrinth-esque gaming rooms designed to never let you see daylight. Version Two is Fremont Street and Downtown, where you can pop easily from one casino to the next, but it’s also a little bit dicey on whether you want to wander around by yourself after the sun goes down. You also get what you pay for with an $80/night room. Version Three is why I stay down there. The coffee shops, restaurants, bars (if that’s your thing), and stores in the Arts District are actually pretty cool—not casino gift shops.
Mothership Coffee is housed in an old hotel along with a few trendy bars, vintage shops, and a gathering spot for patrons. It’s a really cool place, and I would have probably hung out there more if it hadn’t been 110 degrees outside. I hit my other usual Arts District spot, like Tacotarian and Vesta Coffee a couple of times each, but again, the sun made the walk from the hotel miserable. The last two times I’ve been to Vegas—once in September and the other in December—the weather was much different, and I forgot that summer in the desert is brutal.
As soon as my plane landed on Saturday night, Paddy was waiting for me at the airport so we could get to Resorts World for Katy Perry: Play. Now, if you’ve followed me on the internet for a while, you know my feelings about Katy Perry. In short, they’re strong. Or they were at one point. It’s complicated.
It was a long journey that didn’t end well, but I’ve had time to heal and grow as a person. Now I just want her to be happy, and it seems like she is. Her Vegas show is a wild mix of HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS, TOY STORY, and PEE WEE’S PLAYHOUSE and is actually super fun. I had a great time, and really glad that Paddy talked me into going with him and his kids.
Sunday was game day, but not until 6:30pm that night. I woke up early enough to walk to Vesta before it got too hot, and grabbed some cold brew before hopping in a Lyft to my Las Vegas home-away-from-home, Ronald’s Donuts. This little donut shop has been a staple in my life since the early 2000’s. It’s the only real, old fashioned donut shop that makes vegan donuts. When I was on tour with Cherem, we made a point to route all of our drives to and from California through Vegas just to get boxes of donuts that we would slowly devour over the next week. This was no different. I grabbed a dozen, took them back to my hotel room and snacked on them through the entire weekend. I also ran into my friend and former Cherem bandmate Nic, who was in town to see Smashing Pumpkins that night.
Once everyone (and their kids) were ready, we all met up for a late breakfast at a place called the Black and Blue Diner. Then we hit Vesta Coffee again for a late afternoon pick-me-up before it was finally time to head to the game.
This was the fourth time I’ve seen Manchester United play. For someone that didn’t care about soccer until a few years ago, seeing a team from England play four times is kind of a lot. Three of those have been in different cities in the U.S. (Salt Lake, Denver, Las Vegas), and once at their home stadium in Manchester. The last one was obviously the best, since it was a regular season game with all the stars playing the full match. This game was different, since it was the last one on their long preseason tour, and it looked like they were all ready to get back across the pond, and back to their regular routines. United lost 3-2 to Borussia Dortmund (from Germany), but the stadium is beautiful, and we all got cool souvenir scarves. After the match, everyone kind of went their separate ways, and Paddy dropped me off at my hotel where I grabbed a slice of pizza from the lobby, and relaxed in my room eating donuts and watching episodes of THE OFFICE until I crashed.
Monday was a solo day for me, which I never have a problem with. Paddy, Byron, and all the kids took off that morning, so I woke up early and headed to the hotel pool as soon as it opened. Apparently no one else knew (or didn’t care) that the pool opened at 9am, because I had the whole thing to myself for a full hour before anyone else showed up. Once it started getting a little crowded, I headed back to my room for a shower (and a breakfast donut) before heading to Tacotarian for lunch. After that, and armed with another cold brew from Vesta, I set out for The Punk Rock Museum.
Now, if I had been able to stick to my “weekly post” thing that I promised back in January this is where I would say that the museum deserves its own. It does, but I know that I won’t do that. I also didn’t take enough photos, which don’t do it justice anyway. From my personal perspective, the Punk Rock Museum is incredible. It’s a dork haven for a guy like me that loves music, and is fascinated by the little details and process bullshit that hardly anyone else cares about.
There are things on display that *I* would have kept, but didn’t think anyone else would have the foresight to. There are shirts and jackets from iconic photos, setlists from legendary shows, and instruments used on transformative albums. It’s all so, so cool to look at. My absolute favorite part was those little details that I mentioned above. There’s a handmade tour calendar/spreadsheet that The Vandals took with them on a 1988 tour, original handmade layouts for albums that I’ve been listening to for 25 years, and props from album covers that I assumed were lost to time.
Fat Mike from NoFX started the museum, so it’s got a lot of Fat Wreck Chords stuff inside, but not too much. It would have been very easy for him to turn it into a personal Hall of Fame type thing, but he put together a board of advisors to help him avoid that and get some different perspectives. Fletcher from Pennywise, Tony Hawk, Pat Smear from The Germs (and Nirvana and Foo Fighters), and Vinnie from Less Than Jake are all around pitching ideas, and calling in favors to get memorabilia donated for display.
Fat Mike originally wanted to open a record store with a few pieces of memorabilia scattered throughout. He asked Lisa Brownlee, a production manager that worked on the Warped Tour for something like two decades, to oversee everything. It was her idea to really go all out, and turn it into a full blown museum. There’s a wedding chapel, a tattoo studio with pages of punk band flash tattoos (that were super cool to look at, but would never get), and two levels of punk history. There’s a recreation of Pennywise’s practice space, which I think should be swapped out for something else. Byron and I were brainstorming, and decided that it should be replaced by a recreation of the Dischord house front steps. I would love to get a photo there without going all the way to Washington DC and bothering Ian MacKaye (or whoever currently lives there). It’s very heavy on the punk rock lore, which is understandable, and made me wish someone could expand and open a true Hardcore wing. There are a few things here and there, like Minor Threat and Bad Brains tributes, a huge Agnostic Front piece, a picture of the singer of Turnstile, and Kat Moss from Scowl’s boots. They skipped over the entire era of Revelation and Victory Records, nothing about when Hatebreed took it mainstream in the early 2000’s, and I didn’t see anything about Have Heart or Bane. I don’t like either of those last two bands, but it’s hard to argue that they weren’t a huge part of punk/hardcore from the mid to late 2000’s and on.
Those sound more like personal gripes, and they are. It’s a really cool spot, and I can’t overstate how highly I recommend checking it out if you’re in Las Vegas. I can’t wait to go back with some friends.
The rest of the trip consisted of a lot of people watching on my end. I grabbed dinner, and then headed to the strip to wander around. It wasn’t as hot that night, and I used it as an opportunity to check out some of the higher end hotels and casinos that I’ve never been inside of before. I also embraced the ‘Pirates Of The Caribbean’ horseshit, and the ‘Rock and Roll Grunge Tip’ stuff that Trent hates. I wandered through the MGM Grand, down through the LINQ, rode the monorail, and tried to get a good look at the wild new MSG Sphere—which you can see perfectly from the pedestrian bridge between the Wynn and Venetian.
I grabbed a Lyft back to The Plaza, wandered Fremont Street one more time, and crashed. I got coffee the next morning, ate Tacotarian again, and headed for the airport. I didn’t gamble a single dollar, saw Katy Perry, Manchester United, and overall had a great time with my friends. I can’t wait to do it again. Maybe next time I’ll make everyone bring suits, but we’ll avoid the midnight to six shift on a Wednesday.
Postscript
I highly encourage you all to watch SWINGERS this weekend, then read this article about how they made the movie. It’s one of my favorite pieces of writing and makes me nostalgic for mid-to-late 90’s Hollywood. It’s things like this that make me want to pack up and move to LA, even though I know this version of it is long gone.