Slipstream

A couple nights ago, I walked from downtown Las Vegas to the north end of the Strip. I’d been driving for a couple days, and a long stroll seemed the perfect way to shake off my road burn, especially on such a clear and balmy desert night.

I left my hotel and headed down Fremont Street toward Las Vegas Boulevard. Fremont throbbed with loud, drunk revelers carrying supersized beers and giant cocktails brimming over from clear plastic containers shaped like footballs. (more…)

When I arrived in Portland last week, I headed toward the south end of Waterfront Park, that area squeezed in between the Willamette River and the sky-scratching high-rises of downtown commerce. Along the way I passed the Occupy Portland encampment and its surplus of tents and tarps and tethers and hand-painted testaments to a belief in democracy, civil liberties, and a government for and by the people.

At least that’s what the signs suggested. (more…)

I finally came out of the closet—the show-tunes closet, that is. I hadn’t set out to expose myself in this way. I was merely looking for cheap drinks and a little entertainment. But there I was, at Marie’s Crisis Café, in the heart of the West Village. Just me and a room full of serenading strangers, belting out one Broadway melody after the next.

Marie’s sits in the basement of an ancient brick building just around the corner from Christopher Street. When I first passed the bar, I thought it was closed. The windows were dark, the doorway hidden in shadow. Even so, I stepped inside and felt my way down the narrow stairs. But what I found wasn’t what I expected from a New York club. It was more like the basements I saw as a kid, with their low ceilings, exposed rafters, small windows, and dank musty smells that never let us forget we were in cellars. (more…)

I stand in Guerneville’s only laundromat, in front of one of those front-load washing machines that promises to get my clothes cleaner and whiter than the kind with the lid on top. I toss in my clothes, lock the door, and insert most of my quarters. Fourteen, to be exact—$3.50 to wash one load.

I step over to the cash machine to retrieve more quarters for the second load. I reach into my pocket for my wallet. My pocket is empty. (more…)

At a small café in San Francisco’s Mission District, wedged between a taqueria and dry cleaner, Grace has been serving eggs and hash browns and coffee for about a hundred years.

She stands at five-feet-four, minus a couple inches for her perpetual stoop. When she walks, she never lifts her feet off the floor. It’s more a sleep-walker’s shuffle—a mix between indifference and the result of a stout, squat body that no longer wants to move. (more…)