Vegas: Reloaded

Since I have been extremely neglectful of the Cave as of late, I completely forgot to finish the Vegas vacation series.  Two posts in two days.  Shit...this may become a habit.  But probably not.

There is something magical about a restaurant where they wheel a slab of beef right to the table.  It sends a message that says, “A Big Slab of Beef is one of the Best Things in Life” which, coincidentally, is also what Clay Aiken will have carved on his tombstone.  But anyhow, for those of you who have never been to Lawry’s The Prime Rib, allow me to set the scene.

You enter through one of those rotating glass doors, which I love, because someone is always stupid enough to fall for the, “You first” routine and I can trap them in the doors.  That NEVER gets old.

Yes, I am a child.

During the always brief wait for a table, I like to head to the bar for the first of many Fat Tire Amber Ales, but that’s just how I roll.  When consuming more protein than a human being should, it is important to lubricate the throat properly with a few drinks.  Just ask Snooki, from the Jersey Shore. 

Once seated, your server will be called Mrs. Whatever-the-hell-her-name-is because they feel this makes the experience more quaint and rustic.  Well fuck quaint in the ear and rustic can kiss my ass; just get to the part where I get to eat.  But because I am fucking civilized and classy and shit, I wait patiently through the explanations (for the newbies) and cute little pilgrim jokes until the menus are distributed.  This, my gentle reader, is where friendships are made and destroyed in my book.  We are at a restaurant with the words PRIME RIB in the fucking name.  Why, then, does some insufferable little shit ALWAYS ask what the specials are?  And more irritating still, why does a restaurant, with the words PRIME RIB in the fucking name, always have a goddamn fish special?

“Our special today is Chilean Sea Bass lightly braised in a lime aioli soy sauce with a mango and castor oil drizzle, served with a reduction of Tibetan snow peas and aborted baby intestines.  The chef highly recommends it.”

Pretentious assholes.

We are in an establishment that flushes it’s toilets with rendered animal fat.  You can HEAR the blood straining to push it’s way through the almost fully blocked arteries of the regular patrons. Order some fucking beef and have the paramedics standing by, Chief.  Daddy’s gotta get his grub on…

FINALLY, the big silver cart rolls over to our table, where some highly-skilled, illegal alien wetback named Paco proceeds to carve the tender slabs of USDA Prime grade extra fucking A on to your waiting plate.  It’s actually pretty emotional, even as I sit here writing this.  The meat is so soft you can cut it with….well a knife actually.  But it’s still the greatest prime rib I’ve ever had, and the fact that it’s actually carved right there at the table, appeals to my latent Neanderthal eat-what-you-kill ancestral memories.  No me molesta, Paco.  Animal fat is the NECTAR OF THE GODS.  By the way por favor, Donde esta el bano?

Meat es muy magnifico, people. Muy f’ing magnifico…

After such a fine meal, there is only one thing to do in Vegas to cap off the evening.  Ok, well there are several things you can that would really be pretty awesome, but the one I am referring to doesn’t require a drive to a Pahrump whorehouse and a cursory medical examination by a girl named Justice (Call me!).  The ladies wanted to see Barry Manilow, but there was no fucking way any male in this party was going to let that happen.  We settled on going to that Elvis Cirque du Soleil show.  Because I am a great fan of the King, and the show was created with the expressed written consent of the National Football League  Estate of the Late Elvis Aaron Presley, I even agreed to pay for the tickets.  I am so fucking awesome, right?

Until I found out that admission for our party would total just a tad above the cost of an Aston Martin DB9, and that the ridiculously exorbitant amount did not, in fact, include a trip to the aforementioned Pahrump whorehouse.  Everybody was back to being responsible for their own damn admission, thank you very much.  Enthusiasm dampened by the fact that they had to spend their own money to watch clowns push balls across the stage to the strains of “Hound Dog”(I’m assuming), we instead chose to spend our final night in Sin City getting as drunk as humanly possible while still retaining bladder control.  A fine line, as one member of the group, who shall remain nameless, discovered outside of a Sonic Drive In at 4 am.  That was some tRICK.  Yes, it really was a fRICKen shame.  The staff must have had a hell of a time cleaning up the bRICKs outside the restaurant after we left.  Yessiree…

Like I said, nameless…

Life Should Really Learn How To Take A F'ing Joke...

It can be bothersome when the real world intrudes on fun time.  I can be sitting somewhere happily enjoying myself, when reality comes barging through the fucking door, with it’s three obese, over privileged, snot nosed children in tow, followed by his ignorant, G.E.D. having, slut of a wife screaming at the kids to “Shut the fuck up you little turds, you gotta be classy like mama!” You sigh as their incontinent dog craps on your shoes, then scoots his shit-covered ass along your $10,000 Persian rug to clean off. 

You peer out the window, hoping this is actually the Mother of All Punks, and that douche bag Ashton Kutcher is outside, smirking that self satisfied, “I’m fucking Demi Moore and you’re not!” smirk he always seems to have.  You think, “If this IS a punk, I may be able to stop myself from kicking Ashton in the vag out of pure relief.”  But all you see outside is a dirt covered, 1973 AMC Gremlin, leaking any number of fluids on to your newly refinished driveway, with a bumper sticker that reads, “My Kid Stabbed Your Honor Student” Your heart sinks as you try and remember where you hid the rounds to your 10mm pistol and your passport.  The non extradition friendly Maldives are supposed to be nice this time of year…

Life does have a way of pissing in your hypothetical Cheerios when you least expect it.  For a while, it seems you have everything figured out and things just…flow.  You even start to get a little cocky and start calling Life your bitch, while sneaking up behind him and giving him a wedgie.  When Life complains, you give him a shot to the nuts and tell him to stop acting like a pussy.  It’s all good.  What’s Life going to do?  You are the MAN…

Life, on the other hand, has his own ideas.  “No one hits me in the nuts!”, Life mumbles to himself.  “I’m Life, motherfucker! I run shit! Once I get my underwear out of my ass crack, I’ll show that fucker what I’m going to do!”

Apparently, Life ain’t nobody’s bitch.  The vindictive prick…

Over confidence of this sort has always been a particularly interesting aspect of being a Man.  What appears to be self-aggrandizing bluster to outsiders, is actually a sophisticated ritual that communicates where exactly one’s “place” in the pack is.  In any group, there can be only one Alpha.  If more than one person thinks they run the show, there’s going to be conflict.  And this conflict WILL be resolved in some manner.  That’s how Life works.  To quote Sean Connery from Highlander, “There can be only one”

But what we fail to realize most of the time is that Life is the ultimate Alpha.  We’re just squirrels trying to get a nut.  No, you say?  Turn the TV on.  At any given time of the day there is an infomercial with some smug prick babbling on and on about how he can help you fix your life.  “Send me $1000, you poor, uneducated hump,” they’ll say.  “In return, I will send you the secret to success that has allowed me, Johnny Brokedick Lying Sackoshit, to buy this mansion, drive these Aston Martins, and marry seven of the world’s hottest supermodels AT THE SAME TIME!”  Actually, what has allowed him to do these things is 100,000 assholes sending his grifter ass, a $1000 each for some pamphlet he picked up in the Piggly Wiggly and Xeroxed in between cocaine binges and enemas.  Why?  Because all of us are just telling ourselves, “This shit must get easier, shouldn’t it?”, and searching for a way to make sense of it all.

Hubris leads us to believe that we can control of our lives, but it’s bullshit.  Men fall prey to this more than women do, partly because we are stubborn sons of bitches, but also because we feel we have to be constantly under control.  Societal norms have dictated that Men be strong, dependable providers and that they “protect” the women and children.  There has been considerable push back against this type of thinking in the past decade, with pundits opining that we are all equal and should be referred to as “humans” and not men or women.  Political correctness asserts that we are all the same, and that anyone can do anything, simply because we say it should be the way things are.

Utter horseshit.

Many people will take this the wrong way, but Men and Women ARE different.  We have different skills and strengths, as well as different challenges.  Life puts different demands on each gender.  I, for example, can’t bear children.  I’m ok with that.  So why does society demand I wear a fake pregnancy belly so I can “sympathize”?  Why do we insist on imposing our “enlightened” notion of how things should work on something that has worked just fine for millennia?  Who do we think we are?  Why can’t it be ok for a Man to act like a Man or a Woman to behave like a Woman?

What is a Man?  A Man acts like a gentleman until it becomes necessary that he does not.  A Man behaves as if the safety and happiness of those he loves is of paramount importance, because it is.  He will sacrifice himself physically and emotionally to ensure this happens.  He will not eat before the stomachs of those he protects are full, both literally and figuratively.  A Man will speak up when he feels something is wrong, even when others tell him it would be easier to keep quiet.  He will refuse to take the easy way, if he feels it’s not the correct way.  He will stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves.

In short, a Man will do what he believes is right, when he believes it’s right, how he believes it’s right.  That doesn’t mean that he’s always right.  But he’ll do it anyway…

Women are amazing. They are strong, capable, smart, and tough while managing to be delicate, beautiful, and gentle.  The correct mixture of these things drives a Man crazy.   After a few beers, the mixture can even be a little light, but it’s still all good.  They can be just about anything they choose to be and they have fought for the right to prove it.  That’s great.  But somewhere along the line, empowering women turned in to disempowering Men.  Society thinks it’s wrong for Men to behave like…Men.  Boys can’t play “rough” sports at school and are taught that they should be subservient to authority without question.  They are ignored in class because society tells us that males have historically had “too many advantages and are ahead of the girls.”

I don’t know what fricken math class they’ve been observing, but every one I’ve ever been in, has been dominated by extremely smart girls.  But that’s the problem with people.  We go off half-cocked at perceived imbalances, then instead of simply trying to balance them, we over react and push it all the way back to the opposite extreme.  A pre-school in Sweden just banned the terms “him” and “her” because it promoted sexual stereotyping.  Fuck me. No gray area for us, Chief. Oh, no.  Let’s slam that sumbitch in reverse at full speed and see what happens…

But Life doesn’t operate according to human whims and wishes.  As much as we try to mold it to our view of how things should happen, Life still operates old school.  We can bitch and moan, but Life just cruises by, rocking Chucks and Levi’s, with a plain white T shirt and greased back hair, laughing at our futile efforts to make nature fit us.  Maybe Life can be a huge pain in the ass because we aren’t playing by HIS rules.  Perhaps, if we stopped trying to hump Life into submission, prison style, things would work out a little more often.  Maybe, WE are the problem.

Or Life could simply be a sadistic asshole.  Like your old gym teacher but without the tight ass shorts…

I'm Not Dead, Just Busy

My real job blew up for the last few months, but has settled down. Have a bit to say about that...new post soon. I apologize for depriving you of my genius for so long....

No, really. I'm pretty damn smart. And handsome. Did I mention handsome?