Two Christmases in two states, a surprising New Year’s Eve and (finally) a new home all to myself…
It’s been a strange — but good — month and a half, so I thought I might as well chronicle it. My last post on Christmas Day was written between my dual Christmas trips but I didn’t really write much about the Vegas trip, which was an absolute blast.
We decided on Christmas in Vegas because my mom Deb and stepdad Andy are both RV nomad folks now, and after my grandma passed away in June, they decided they’d rather not come back to the cold and snow in Minnesota. They asked my brothers Kevin and Jason and I to pick a place to meet for an unconventional Christmas and we decided on Las Vegas… and we had such a blast!
We flew in on December 13 and we had some time to kill before we could check into Excalibur, so we decided to hit up the fairly-new Punk Rock Museum. Fat Mike from NOFX founded the museum with skateboarder Tony Hawk and The Germs’ Pat Smear on the governing board. The museum is amazing, with posters from every era of punk and some amazing artifacts. They even have a full bar, a tattoo parlor and a room where you can play some historic guitars. It’s an amazing way to kill an afternoon in Vegas and not losing your shirt.
We had tickets to see Darren Aronofsky’s Postcards From Earth at The Sphere on late Thursday afternoon, so we we spent the late morning and early afternoon at one of my favorite places in Las Vegas: the Pinball Hall of Fame Museum. I’ve been there three or four times I think and it’s always a must-stop whenever I’m in Sin City. It’s basically just a massive warehouse with pinball machines and arcade cabinets from practically every era of gaming. Sure, a lot of them don’t work, but the place is so huge and there are more than enough that do work. Plus they even have the amazing Star Wars Pod Racing arcade game!
After getting our gaming fix for a few hours at the Pinball Museum, we headed up to The Sphere, which is just monumentally impressive on every level. A few years ago, coming out of COVID, we all decided to take a long weekend in Vegas just because we hadn’t seen each other in a few years, and I remember seeing the massive frame of The Sphere as it was being built. I couldn’t help but wonder what this would be like when it was completed, and it exceeded every single expectation.
Your whole time in The Sphere is roughly two and a half hours, which gives you time to eat and drink and check out the other exhibits in the expansive atrium. For example, you can chat with interactive robots or get a 360-degree avatar taken of your likeness. The film itself is just under an hour — following two astronauts, Byron (Brandon Santana) and Fang (Zaya) who are exiting a state of stasis on a ship. They are essentially told the history of life on Earth to help get their bearings, as they have been chosen to bring new life to a new world they have landed on.
When you ultimately make your way to your seats at The Sphere, this is what you see at first: which is ultimately a red herring.
I couldn’t help but smile, because I knew what they were doing right away. I figured the film would start on a viewing area that size, and then at some pivotal point, expand to the entirety of The Sphere — which provides an unprecedented 270-degree viewing experience… and I was right. It reminded me of an old reel I saw during one of the Cinerama Festivals they used to have at the Arclight Hollywood back in the day. When promoting the Cinerama format, they would first present the viewing area as a normal movie screen, and then ultimately pull back curtains on both sides, revealing a curved screen that is three times the size of a conventional movie screen.
Even knowing what they were doing beforehand… it still didn’t take away from how impressive and awe-inspiring it was. Naturally, they don’t allow any photos to be taken during the film, so you’ll have to see it for yourself, which I would highly reccomend you do. Yes, it’s quite expensive… but you’ll literally not see anything like this anywhere on Earth, so it’s worth it, if you ask me.
We only had to go downstairs for our Friday evening entertainment — dinner and an entertaining show at the Excalibur’s Tournament of Kings. I had stayed at Excalibur a few times in 2022 for the NHL All-Star SuperSkills event and a Kings/Knights game, but I never got around to taking in the Tournament of Kings, and it’s quite a good time! I honestly just thought it was some jousting and a bit of swordplay but the whole thing is quite an immersive event. I didn’t realize each section was a country and each country had its own ‘king’ that ‘fought’ for those patrons etc. You get a decent meal too and overall I’d probably go back if I had a night with no dinner plans.
I capped off that night by returning to a wonderful bar in New York New York called Nine Fine Irishmen, which I knocked a few pints back at during my 2022 trips. It was also there that I did my only gambling of the whole trip, as a Twitter friend talked me into it. I replied to Geoff’s tweet about something or other and mentioned I was in Vegas. He replied by telling me to go out into the casino and place a bet on the 0/00 spot on a craps table and “enjoy the spoils.” So I figured, why the hell not. I got some cash and put two $20 bets down… and lost both. Oh well, back to the bar… (Shout-out to Randi, the awesome upstairs bartender at Nine Fine Irishmen).
Saturday we got up and headed to G.O.A.T. Sports Bar to watch the Vikings game (gotta love 10 AM beers) and then went down to Gold Coast Bowling Center to chuck some rocks… poorly, I might add, at least for me. I really gotta figure out how to do that hook properly because sometimes it works brilliantly and most times it just spins right into the gutter…
My brothers and I also discovered quite the weird… “trend,” which is probably not even the right word but I have no idea what else to call it: people taking off their shoes and leaving shoe prints on the white parking garage walls. I’m serious. Look…
Yeah, I dunno, but we saw them all over that Excalibur parking garage and a few others like it in Sin City. Mind-boggling…
I had considered going to the UFC fight that night… until I saw prices were $300 for nosebleeds, so I ended up just drinking at the SportsBook and watching the Kings game for a bit where I chatted with a few friendly randos who were killing time before getting their night started. One guy was waiting for his girlfriend and their friends to get ready and we chatted about sports and shit.
After the game I made my way to the Lobby Bar, where I found myself most nights after all of our family stuff was done. There was either Jon Jon or Billy behind the bar the five nights I was there, and they were great as always. Billy even mentioned he went to high school with someone who became a pro ball player, though his name escapes me. Good people.
I was also quite surprised how Vegas is still one of the few places you can smoke indoors… but apparently they have severely upgraded their filtration systems because there was someone smoking literally two or three seats down from me and I couldn’t smell a thing. Strange.
Sunday was our last day in Vegas, and it was quite the doozy. We started off by heading out to my mom and stepdad’s campsite outside of Vegas, where they stayed in their RV they affectionately dubbed Lucy. They cooked us some brunch and we hung out there for a few hours trying to find shit with the metal detector (I found a penny and a 9MM shell casing) and just shooting the shit before we headed back to the hotel and got ready for the last big thing of our trip: KA Cirque du Soleil.
I’ve never been to any Cirque du Soleil show and my closest to experiencing that was the scene in Knocked Up where Seth Rogen and Paul Rudd take in a Cirque show on shrooms…
We all basically didn’t do gifts this Christmas, and we basically just paid for all the various things we did as our gifts to each other. The KA show was mom and stepdad’s big gift to us, and man was it incredible. Admittedly, the story wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to follow, but man is it just a SHOW! The artistry on every level — from the ridiculously intricate sets to the action to the performers — was worth every penny that they spent on this :)
The next day I flew back to L.A. for one final week of work for 2023, from the 18th through the 25th, and then I flew back to Minnesota to see my dad and hang out with some old college friends… and get some Cossetta’s :) Still just as absolutely delicious as when we used to come here as a kid before the State High School Hockey Tournament.
Eight years ago, on a whim, my buddy Jesse decided to drive up from La Crosse to the Twin Cities to hang out with me and a few other friends — Ryan and Bronson. It was a wonderful way to decompress after the holidays, so we decided to do it again this year, though Jesse decided to make it official and give this… whatever the fuck it is… an official name: Holler Days.
Jesse got a few hotel rooms in Minneapolis and I got to hang out with him, Ryan, Bronny, Chris, another Chris, Brandon, JJ and Christian — many of whom I haven’t seen in at least 5 years, some many more. It was a great weekend of catching up and drinking beers in downtown Minneapolis and I think/hope this will become a regular annual thing. We didn’t take any pictures the whole weekend, so you’ll just have to trust me that it happened…
I decided to fly back on New Year’s Eve, largely since it was about an $80 difference between the 30th, and I’ve never flown on NYE before so I was curious how it would go. New Year’s Eve is a young person’s holiday anyway, and since I haven’t done much on NYE the last few years, I figured, why not.
Whenever I fly back to L.A., 99 times out of 100 it’s through Sun Country, and 100 times out of 100, when I fly out of Terminal 2 I get a few beers at La Cocina del Barrio. I walked into that bar like I have dozens of times in the past and got myself a beer… but I couldn’t take my eyes off this blonde woman across the bar.
She was engaged in some very lively banter with a few people around her, and I assumed they were her traveling companions. I didn’t have a great look at her… but I knew she was beautiful right away. The life of the party, clearly. I never said anything, never went over there because she was so immersed in whatever that conversation was I figured there’d be no point. Then, somehow, she moved her bags and sat right next to me and immediately struck up a conversation. Huh?
This typically does not happen to me, and the few times it does, it’s not gorgeous bubbly blondes that are 10 years younger than me. It’s…. well, not seems to sum that up thusly…
We were on the same flight, so for the next hour or so we talked about all sorts of shit like hometowns (I’m from Cottage Grove, she’s from neighboring Hastings), our jobs (I’m an entertainment journalist, she helped start a modeling agency with a friend) and all sorts of shit. I even told her about all the eviction shit with my roomate, despite being embarassed to admit having a roommate at 46. She seemed flirty but I’m so out of practice and I assume that’s just her personality, so who knows.
When it was getting time to board, we both walked to the gate and as she said something about me getting her number, I handed her one of my cards… instead of me putting my number in her phone. I didn’t get her number. Apparently I should have. She said something to the effect of that she would text me, but never did. Weird. Well, not really. Oh well. Besides, I had bigger shit to worry about: finding a place to live.
As I mentioned in the last post, I was staying with my friends Toby and Jim in the spare room of their DTLA condo since December 1, but with both of my trips and work in between, I just didn’t have… or make… the time to find a new place in December. Right when I got back I started poring over listings, and much to my surprise, it took me less than two weeks to find a place.
The two other times I was looking for apartments in Los Angeles were among the most stressful in my life. Not only was I looking for a place I could afford, I was looking for a roommate situation I could handle. Both of my first two apartments, it took me until just a few days before the end of the month to secure the place, with eachentire month leading up to it just incredibly stressful.
This time, I visited three places, applied for all three, was accepted into two and took this one. It’s a great fit for me. It’s not huge by any means but it’s bigger than the other two (500 sq ft) with a full separate kitchen and a separate bathroom. A lot of places you see everything is in the one space,, but that separation actually makes it seem more like an actual place to live and not some kind of weird prison cell you pay for.
Thankfully, the apartment was just a half block from the storage space I rented, so I’ve spent the past two weeks slowly moving stuff out of there with a hand cart/dolly I borrowed from Toby, and I just closed out the storage space a few days ago. The only thing I immediately need is another bookshelf because we left my second one on the curb. I honestly can’t remember if it broke, or if we were just too exhausted and left it. Eventually I’ll need a new TV stand, but for now my DVD boxes are holding up fine.
It feels good to have a place to myself. It’s actually pretty quiet, though there’s a guy above me who plays some bass from time to time. I’m glad I got this done when I did, since it allowed me to enjoy my birthday at the LA Kings game — where I won free SUITE tickets for this past Monday’s game and now I can fly to Nashville tomorrow and enjoy my brief trip there to visit my college friends Grant and Kimmie — and see a Kings/Predators game (duh) without worrying about any of that shit.
This could really be my best year yet even in my advanced age at forty-fucking-seven. When I get back from Nashville I’ll get back to work on my Ballpark Figures book, and I hope to have a draft of that done by this summer. I tend to write pretty fast when I really want to, and I think I’ll have so much fun with this that it will fly onto the page.
And then this summer will bring the most anticipated Dodgers season in years with such a ridiculous lineup it still doesn’t even seem real. Plus I’ve got a new neighborhood to explore, more trips to plan/book and even a few concerts to look forward to (Metallica and Zach Bryan). And that’s not even counting all of the shit that I haven’t even thought of yet.
Thanks for reading this monstrosity. I hope your year is off to as interesting and as bizarre a start as mine, and if not, there’s still 11 more months to go… *Kathryn-Hahn-not-subtle-winking-emoji* Peace in. Gallagher out!