Monthly Archives: September 2023

Posted in travel

Wanna Go to Vegas?

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by Bob Sparrow

South Point Hotel & Casino

It was Monday, mid-morning, work was slow, the guests we had coming for dinner on Tuesday had canceled due to illness and I knew the answer to the question before I asked it, so I wanted to make sure I was ready when I said, “Hey, Linda, wanna go to Vegas?”  Without missing a beat, she said, “I can be ready in an hour.” She was ready in half an hour!  I had just filled the car with gas the day before, so off to Vegas we went.  Linda had called for reservations at our favorite hotel, South Point, but had rooms only for Tuesday night, but nothing for Monday.  She called around and discovered that this time of year was ‘convention time’, so not only were most of the hotels filled, but those that weren’t were charging exorbitant rates, but I assumed the ‘Ms Bargin Hunter’ would find us a place.

As we headed to Vegas, I was excited about placing a ‘real’ bet on the Monday Night game, since my brother and I place ‘pretend’ bets on both college and pro games every week – this year we’re making some ‘pretend’ money.  It was the Bills against the Jets, I liked the Bills to cover and the over, but called Jack on the way out and asked him to ‘research’ it and call me back with what he found.  We were about an hour out of Vegas when he called back, “parley Buffalo to the over”, he said; we were on the same page.  This was going to be fun!!!  We stopped at South Pointe to place the bet and watch the game, plus had a gourmet dinner of a hot dog and a beer. Jack & I were definitely on the same page, but we were in the wrong book!  Jets won and the score was under.  After the game we head further down the strip to Circus Circus, the only hotel with vacancies and a reasonable rate.

Circus Circus made my list

Recommendation #1: Don’t ever stay at Circus Circus.  It is very tired, the circus left town years ago; after waiting 40 minutes to check in, we had to walk across the street into a low-rise, low-rent building with no elevators to our second floor room.  Our room was possibly where they kept the elephants before bringing them across the street to the ‘Big Top’ during Circus Circus’ hey day.  We played some slots (they still had the kind with handles!). then retired for the evening.

On Tuesday morning we could not get out of Circus Circus fast enough, although we felt like we were abandoning the cockroaches that we had befriended there.  So far, our ‘spur of the moment’ get-away had included a hot dog dinner, a bad room at a bad hotel and $200+ in gambling debt.  A Denny’s down the street seemed like the appropriate place to stop for a gormet breakfast!

Checking into South Point felt like checking into the Ritz.  I found a craps table and had great fun and very nice winnings before we noticed a show in the South Point theater featuring The Bronx Wanderers, and thought how bad can they be after our Circus Circus experience, so we bought tickets.

Recommendation #2: If you ever get a chance to see The Bronx Wanderers – do it!!!  They are a father (Vinny Adinolfi, 65 years old) and son (Vinny Jr, 35 years old) band, both play the guitar, keyboard and are lead singers; they also have a great saxophone player and the group has awesome harmony.  They do rock and roll classics from the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s and do it very well – they killed Bohemian Rapsody!!  Vinny, the dad, was a successful record producer in New York and worked with, and had great stories about, most of the popular recording stars of the day.  We finished the evening with a nice dinner at the Silverado Steak House, gambled a bit more and retired to a much nicer room.

While this spur-of-the-moment escapade started out as a disaster, it ended with me thinking I just might ask Linda again, “Wanna go to Vegas?”

 

 

 

 

Posted in opinion

THAT DAY

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It’s been twenty-two years since “that day”.  September 11 is a date that remains indelibly imprinted in the minds of those of us who watched it unfold. I can still remember almost every minute of “that day” – watching the aftermath of the first plane crash and listening to the TV announcers speculate that it was an errant private plane.  Shortly, of course, we knew it wasn’t an errant plane, but a deliberate attack.  It is still difficult to think about the people who perished that day – people who left home for work on a bright, blue-sky Tuesday morning and never returned.  The very notion of that was – is – frightening.  I don’t think we can collectively sleep quite as soundly ever again.  We learned on “that day” that there are people in the world who wish us harm.  My brothers and I grew up benefiting from the goodwill America garnered from the Second World War.  The notion of being hated was unthinkable.  But September 11 showed us that we can no longer assume that we are perceived as the “world’s good guys”. Now we live in the shadow of “that day” and the impact it has on us continues, especially when we travel.  Before September 11 we could book a flight at the last minute, run through the airport to our gate, and hope the door didn’t hit us on the rear as we boarded our flight.  Now we have to get to the airport hours early, remove our shoes as we enter a security check, and limit the amount of shampoo we carry.

Socially, it brought on a lot of change too. In fact, I’m not sure we yet fully understand the toll that it took on us. Surely our national mindset was altered after watching all of the carnage and grief of “that day”. In the immediate aftermath of September 11 we managed to put our differences aside, but that fraternity has since dissipated.  Contentious elections, warring political extremes and social media have altered how we behave.  The COVID-19 pandemic placed even more strain on our psyche, and it shows no sign of abating.  Just this morning I read about people arguing over vaccines and mask mandates at a local forum.

As someone who recently experienced loss, I have a new appreciation for all of the September 11 families, who, without warning, lost a loved one on “that day”.  None of us can truly understand the void they were left with when their loved one perished so suddenly and in such a violent manner.  But I do know this: we all suffer some residual grief from those attacks.  The losses and changes from the pandemic have only added to it.  So many people now are short-tempered and it’s showing up in our everyday encounters.  Last week the local news reported that 81% of Arizonans have been the recipient of road rage.  That is a huge number, but based on my personal observation I suspect it is correct.

Lifting a middle finger on our roadways, or getting angry at a store clerk, or making demeaning comments on social media is not a sustainable construct for our society. So, what do we do?  I don’t think we throw up our hands and say it’s too large of a problem to solve.  My suggestion is we each try to make a small dent in the problem. If we acknowledge that we all have all experienced trauma since “that day”, then we should treat everyone we meet as we treat someone in grief: with kindness. 

Today the National September 11 Memorial and Museum is airing a documentary featuring first-person accounts of the attacks and their aftermath.  One of the survivors said in her interview, “It’s important that we remember the kindness, and that we take care of ourselves and other people, as we did that day.”

Kindness.  What a wonderful legacy of “that day”.

Posted in Tributes

Hero . . . Gone

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by Bob Sparrow

Jimmy Buffett

I originally had a rather banal blog on some history and suggestions around Labor Day, ready to be posted Monday, when, on Saturday morning, I got a text from my three kids and a call from several friends, wishing me condolences for the passing of Jimmy Buffett.  What?!!  I’m shocked!!!  He died from lymphoma at the age of 76.    My love and history of all things Margaritaville are well known.

I was introduced to Jimmy in the early 80s by my dearly departed best friend, Navy pilot, Don Klapperich.  After he retired from the Navy, he went to work in Saudi Arabia, teaching the Saudi Air Force how to be fighter pilots.  Prior to cell phones and even the internet, the way we communicated with each other over such a distance was through cassette tapes that we would mail to one another (Yes, cassette tape were quite the rage).  I was, of course, familiar with some of Jimmy’s earlier popular songs, Come Monday, Cheeseburger in Paradise and Margaritaville as well as his hit in 1973 that couldn’t be played on the radio at the time, Why Don’t We Get Drunk and Screw, but Don had sent me a cassette with a song called, Somewhere Over China.  It’s not a particularly great song and not a hit for Jimmy, but for some reason the lyrics resonated with me.  Don, had sent me other Buffett songs, but I really didn’t pay much attention until after this song, so I went back and listened more carefully to the lyrics of Jimmy’s songs.  They were funny and philosophical and while I was never a ‘beach bum’, they touched my ‘wanderlust’ soul.  I then didn’t want to wait for Don to send me more Buffett songs from Saudi Arabia, so I started buying all of Buffett’s CDs that I could get my hands on – new and old.

Parrotheads

I had become a ‘Parrothead’, and so got tickets for the next Jimmy Buffett concert when he came to Orange County, for his concert at a large, outdoor venue, Irvine Meadows.  I forget who it was that told me that to get the full experience of a Jimmy Buffett concert, get to the concert parking lot early . ..  real early.  I did.  Holy Parrothead!!  Four hours before the concert, the parking lot was full of people dressed in all kinds of beach, parrot and pirate gear along with flat bed trucks with grass shacks and sand on the back, serving up bottomless margaritas.  I’d never seen so many men with cocoanut bras in my life!!!  It was truly the best and biggest concert party I had ever attended.  The concert was fun-filled with lots of audience participation as everyone was feeling no pain after a four-hour warm-up in the parking lot.  I saw Jimmy several other times, back in Irvine Meadows, when I took the kids when they were old enough to appreciate the parking lot party, in Las Vegas and even in Michigan where I encouraged my fellow workers there to become Parrotheads.

My Margaritaville flag at half-staff

Aside from writing most of his hit songs, Jimmy performed a lot of duets with many great country stars like Zak Brown, Kenny Chesney, Toby Keith, George Strait, Clint Black, as well as his well-known hit with Alan Jackson, It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere.  But Jimmy was far from a ‘one trick pony’, he diversified and open his first Margaritaville restaurant and bar in Key West, Florida, which I visited years ago.  There are now 23 Margaritaville Hotels, restaurants and casinos with locations in the U.S., Mexico, Canada, Australia and the Caribbean.  He also developed a Margaritaville tequila as well as my favorite beer, Landshark; there is a Broadway play ‘Escape to Margaritaville’; he had his own recond company and he was a best-selling author.  His networth was north of one billion dollars.

A Pirate Looks at Forty is another iconic Buffett song, as this pirate looks back on 40 years of pure joyful entertainment that Jimmy provided me.  My flag with ‘It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere’ banner flies at half-staff this week. .  Rest in Peace Jimmy, you created a better world.  Fins up!