Bathtub Brouhaha - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

“Jesus, God.” I thought, as I approached the hotel room. I had only left for what felt like 20 minutes to ponder this rotten assignment. I thought a little trip to the casino downstairs would help clarify my vision of purpose out here in the vast, lonely desert. Really, I only wanted to get the car washed after my attorney had made a fool of himself on the elevator, brandishing a pocket knife in front of God and everyone, and then once again when we got back to the room, unveiling a bowie knife to “cut the limes”.

I could hear the muffled sounds of loud music before I even got the key in, piercing through the paper thin encasements of a stale Vegas hotel door with ease. I had no idea what kind of madness was awaiting. I barely managed to open the door at all, but what I found in the bathroom was far worse than the present condition of the room. All I wanted was some sleep, however I had to deal with my attorney peaking in the bathtub on a quarter sheet of acid. He wasn’t too keen on my intentions of moving the tape player away from the bath either. In fact, he wanted me to turn on Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” and throw the radio into the tub with him!

Please excuse my inconsideration, but this could not have been more of a massive inconvenience. This type of thing is typical of my attorney, but did he have to pull this right now? We had been in Vegas for just over 2 days, and neither one of us had gotten any sleep since before we left L.A.  I was ready to crash, but instead I had to keep my spiral-eyed attorney from accidentally killing himself, on purpose. Thanks a lot, you rotten bastard.

Rather than helping with his suicide and tossing the tape player into the soapy water, I turned the music up as loud as it goes, hurled a grapefruit at his head when the song climaxed, ran out of there, and shut the door as fast as I could. I had never heard a more gut-wrenching scream until that next moment. It became apparent by the decibel level that the most obvious move was to grab the mace and the megaphone before he opens the door in a viciously violent rage and hurls the nearest chair in my direction. He didn’t exactly like the concept of me needing to work, which mostly consisted of some intense power-sleeping in the extremely near future, but he also knew that I don’t fuck around when it comes to matters of business or pleasure, both of which I was in desperate need of, and after making it clear that slumber was my only pacifier, he soon retreated back to the bathroom with barely more than a moderate amount of coercion.

Don’t think for a minute I didn’t emphatically empathize with my attorney. Being locked into a mind-warp twisting his head in ways that will never be experienced in the same way, by anyone else, ever again, is not something to merely overlook. This will most certainly be construed as outlandishly irresponsible by the masses, but in reality should feel a bit more than vaguely familiar, like déjà-vu. It’s a flash of cosmic connection, something that isn’t remembered in a fraction of the same vivid way as it was initially experienced. The vast majority of people won’t ever be fully aware of anything close to the same wavelength as this, not that they can’t imagine, they just refuse to exercise the mind-power it takes to fathom these kinds of notions, and then the real trick becomes attempting reflection in a positive way.  It’s not a matter of what is, or what isn’t, what should be, or what will never be. The idea is to look for a shade of value, in-between the extremes, that suits our own personal needs, and then expand on the dissonance in the most productive ways, not just for ourselves, but for others to try and improve on as well.