ich bin ein auslander

so where the hell was i? we finished eating, and that was about the time the band was due on stage… wendy ran off to shoot the show, while i did my normal stand on the side of the stage routine… i like listening by the stage soundboard since i can hear the main stage mix. anyway, the show went really well, the band was on and they have a pretty big following in vegas so everyone was pretty into it even though they’re technically just the opening band… until i notice some random guy walking up onstage. I didn’t think much about it at first since it was a charity show as well, so i was thinking it’s just some guy from the charity who’s going to make an announcement or whatever, and it must be part of the show…

but no. it was just some older, completely drunk guy that managed to get past at least 10 different security guys with no identification, no stickers, no laminates, nothing. so he walks up there during a song and starts grunting into the mic, vaguely getting about every fifth word of the song right… pretty damn funny. they pulled it off and made some good jokes about it, letting him grunt along for the chorus, before security pulled him off the stage and out the venue… and all the security guards working my side of the stage were replaced, and one would assume, fired.

show ended and we headed back to the dressing room… saw mc hammer and tiger woods hanging about (it was a tiger woods charity show)… and the jovi getting warmed up in the hallway. started drinking up a storm in the dressing room while we tried to suss out the plan for the rest of the evening… there was an end of tour party taking place after the show ended, but it was also jason’s bachelor party of sorts that night, although there weren’t any set plans other than 20 of his friends were out and hanging around. robby made a few calls and next thing you know, we’re off to the ghost bar on the top floor of the palms, hanging out in a private room with our own bartender… more drinking, and a few trips out to take in the view.. the outdoor patio gives you a pretty tremendous view of the strip.

Kept drinking, but 20 guys and three girls (all of them either wives or girlfriends) does not a bachelor party make, so the guys decided to head out to a strip club, while those of us with our girlfriends there opted to head back to the boardwalk for a little shabby 3am gambling. Did that for a bit but luck wasn’t with us; although, we did get to catch the last number of the prince cover band. excellent. grabbed a cab and passed out in bed.

sunday was pretty tame - everyone had flights at different times so everyone pretty much kept to themselves, packed up and made their way to the airport. wendy and i chilled in the room and had room service for a lovely easter brunch (lines would have been way too long everywhere else), and hopped on a chartered van with whoever was left for our 3pm flight back to la.

that’s pretty much it. a great time as per usual with that crew…

woke up a bit hazy at around 11:00am, after getting a pretty bizarre prank phone call urging us to get up. still not sure who the culprit was on that one. gave rob a call, but miyoko had already dragged him down to the boardwalk casino and he had already won another $500 and decided to walk away, so no gambling love there. or food love, as they had already ate. how they get up and function that early is beyond me…

so we called john and he was groggily up for breakfast… headed down to the buffet where the breakfast food had already been carted off and settled for a ton of turkey and various cheeses. yum. cheese. after that, we were on our own for awhile as they had various meet and greets and whatnot to deal with… so off to gamble! Headed back to the boardwalk where I racked up about $30 playing blackjack, then to New York New York to play the amazing video game i went on and on about the last time we were there. We kept feeding in quarters so we actually finished the game… then we played the basketball shooting game where I killed Wendy (rather amazingly, since I’ve never really played and she did in high school)… and some great crap food from their food court. ummmm… fish and chips.

time to head back to mandalay, so we can drop in for sound check… wendy decided to take a nap, so i headed down only to find out it was actually cancelled. headed back to the room, relaxed for a bit and found out it was being rescheduled but close enough to show time that everyone was just going to go over and hang out there. Got dressed and went on over to the venue… hung out for a bit and had dinner at the fantastic catering setup. great mongolian bbq, and a fantastic bananas foster for desert. kick ass…

alright, aparently we’re really leaving for dinner now so i’ll pick up from here later.

Here’s the quick rundown…

flew out of la to vegas friday morning… southwest, fully booked flight, but we were there early enough to be part of the first boarding group, so we got decent seats and the all-important overhead container space for our bags. Woot! I’m a big fan of not having to check luggage if at all possible. Flight was uneventful, except for the fairly lame older ladies who decided to wear surgical masks for the entire flight. I wanted to keep walking past them and coughing. Lamest of the lame - as soon as we’re off the plane - while still standing around the SAME group of people, and breathing their air and stink - they take the masks off! Now, wasn’t that pointless?

Grab a cab and off to the Four Seasons to check in… feeling all swanky until I realized it’s only limos and “executive charters” pulling in and the doorman gives our cab a withering glance. Fuck them. We ain’t rich, we just hang out with rich people.

So we check in and we’re on our way to the elevator when half the band spills down the hall, off to Ceaser’s Palace for gambling… needed to freshen up so we just grabbed the cell numbers for later hookups. Got into our room, put stuff away, relaxed for a few and got in touch with Rob and Miyoko… they were up for a quick drink (or three) and then a stumble around the local casinos. Wendy took us over to Excalibur for Krispy Kreme, then we headed across the street to the Tropicana to find Rob’s mythical gambling chicken. Apparently, it does exist - but it goes on tour and was in Reno at the moment. We settled for yard-long margaritas, and continued moving. We ended up at the Holiday Inn Boardwalk (the best place to gamble on the strip - just like being downtown!).. Miyoko promptly won $100 on slots while Rob and I frittered away at the Roulette table… I won $70 and Rob won $300. Guess which was the luckier couple on this trip?…

A few hands of blackjack later, and Wendy was down a bit… but nevertheless, it was time for some more drinks as we headed back to Mandalay Bay… John booked dinner at Lupo, where we met up with the whole crew for a nice Pucky italian dinner (and lots more drinks)… we then crossed the street and basically took over the Russian vodka bar there called Red Square. They’ve got over 100 vodkas available and we sampled damn near every one of them… we had intended to go back to the Boardwalk, or even downtown, but drinking had taken it’s toll and we wisely decided not to gamble that loaded. finally stumbled off to bed at some ungodly hour… best part of that night was the fact that no one left a credit card, the main guys went to bed a bit early, so we stuck Greg with the bill which he had to charge to his room. And hope that he gets reimbursed for it. heh. second best part was being mistaken for kato kaelin. should had done the autograph.

will do day two and three in a bit… off for some dinner!

and bored out of my skull. Vegas is sensory overload enough, and you’re always running out to do something… add to that the general insanity of being with a touring rock band, and it’s no wonder bands go nuts when they get off a tour and have to slow things down again. i’m climbing up the walls right now.

anyway, i’ll blog about the trip later because sitting in front of a computer typing is just not appealing right now.

and I haven’t updated. Don’t really have to much to talk about… the next two weekends should be a blast (vegas and then coachella) but at the moment not much is going on. Got two small band sites to build out… nothing terribly interesting or innovative to do, so we’re pretty much resorting to surfing around and finding neat effects to do in the background. I can definately tell that I need to spend some time brushing up on Flash (yet again). I can reverse engineer like a muthafucka but starting from scratch on things is a bit iffy.