A bit much, I think, meeting J. Edgar Hoover and Madeline Albright on the same day. OK, Hoover was quite dead, the late FBI boss a statue bending over assertively, as if ready to pounce, in the the main foyer of the Newseum in Washington DC, but the former Secretary of State/UN Ambassador looked quite pink and healthy as she showed off her collection of brooches in a TV studio upstairs.
The Newseum is a monument to journalism, the so-called "fourth-estate," which in its finest form has kept kings, presidents, politicians, scammers and mobs in check and at its worst pumped up wars, spread tyranny, "live shots" of car chases and celebity DUIs.
I had a dream that the Grand Lisboa tower, a hotel-casino that now dominates the skyline of Macau, came alive one night, pulled itself from its mooring, marched across China's Pearl River Delta and, like Godzilla, tossed trolley cars around Hong Kong.
Ka-Ching? (a Chinese expression?)
Like Vegas in the 90s, this former Portuguese backwater colony, now called East Las Vegas, has gone over-the-top.
I think about my week in Macau last year as I walk the strip in Las Vegas, past rubble-strewn lots that look like some lizard of mass destruction had just swung through. Past construction cranes that have not moved an inch since my last visit a year ago. Past women stuffed in short tight skirts like shrimp in sushi rolls, alone or in pairs, peering at their mobiles. This is not the Las Vegas of the mid-century when Mo Dalitz and his pals ruled and in the words of a longtime restaurateur, "knew how to take care of people." This is not the Vegas of the 90s when the Steve Winns and corporate poobahs built palaces and faux New Yorks and Venices and "family values" was the motto. This is the Now Las Vegas: down and a bit dirtier, but not out.
If the devil made a deal with me to choose one joyous, cathartic experience before he cast me onto the hazardous waste heap, I would (aside from participating in a Three Stooges pie fight) choose a romp through the first snow of the season: flapping my snow angel wings, pelting speed limit signs with icy snowballs, feeling cool fairydust on my reddened cheeks.
That happened last weekend as a rare October snow surprised California's Sierra Nevada.
Point Lobos, California State Park - All Photos (c) 2009 Russell Johnson
Don't know much about geology, but what I am learning defines me, in the nature of things, as the insignifcant biped that I am.
Paid a visit to the Pinnacles National Monument. Not recommended during the summer as the temperatures regularly hover around the 100F mark. The best time to go is in the cool spring when the wildflowers are blooming.
I did learn (in the air conditioned comfort of a interpretive center) that The Pinnacles are actually the weathered remnants of an ancient volcano, half of which hitched its way along the tectonic freeway and is now holed up in some rock motel north of Los Angeles.
But as movers and shakers go, Point Lobos is the clear winner.
Had the pleasure of a window seat on a flight from Seattle to Oakland last week and shot this HD video out the window. It shows Mt. Hood in Oregon and Mt. Shasta in California.
