It was a cheap flight. No monitors in the headrests and the WiFi wouldn’t connect, so I was reduced to casually leering at a middle-aged couple making out about six rows ahead of me.
I could only see their silhouettes through the crack between their seats. She had blonde hair with streaks of grey, up in a bun. His hair, also blonde with grey, was long enough to tuck behind his ears. His wide, white-toothed grin made him seem like he had money and secrets. He didn’t laugh, he guffawed, his head swaying like a drunk golf pro. She giggled, grateful for the attention, touching his face. His red, bulbous nose smashed into her cheek, lips hunting for an embrace. His gentleness, like a 1970s cult leader, kept me riveted.
We were headed to Vegas, so who knows, maybe they pre-gamed. I imagined them as young lovers who just couldn’t figure it out in their twenties, but now they’re both divorced and their kids have left the nest. Two people who lost time and somehow found their way back to each other. I couldn’t stop watching them.
Overhead announcement. Kiss. A mother with a baby exits the bathroom. Kiss. Beverage cart passes. Kiss. When asked if they wanted something to drink, I imagine the man saying no with a shit-eating grin. “I’ll just have a...” turns to the woman, “kiiiiiiiiiiss.” More spit was swapped than a 23andMe DNA test.
The way his eyebrows danced, the fluttering of his fingers as he spoke, something about this man captivated me. Were they on their way to get married? Were they high? Was she being trafficked? Was he? Maybe she had lingerie under her clothes and he had a plug jammed in the ole prison wallet, you know the one with the squirrel tail attached.
I wish I could report that I forced a taxi to tail them to their hotel, watched them check in, followed them to their room and put my ear to the door, listening to them make sweet love until they exploded. But it was Mother’s Day, for Christ’s sake, and I had a free pass to Meow Wolf and a pasta dinner to attend.
If you ever get the chance to have a large Italian family that lives in Vegas, take it. Alleged mobsters, bar owners, Dean Martin impersonators, magicians, valets, casino carpet salesmen, poker players, we got it all and it's always a blast. I used the pasta dinner as the initial reason to head west. My mom was also going to be there and my girlfriend got me a year-long pass to Meow Wolf, an art collective from Santa Fe that gained notoriety after George R.R. Martin dropped a bunch of dough to convert an abandoned bowling alley into their first permanent home, and eventually allowed them to franchise.
Las Vegas has lost a lot of its luster. Gambling is so accessible online that Vegas is becoming just another sports town. And having been lucky enough to visit many of the countries the casinos on the Strip are trying to replicate has ruined my ability to find a garish replica interesting. Venice, Italy and the Venetian Hotel are no comparison, as luxurious as it is. If I didn't have a ton of family there I'd have little reason to go. I love Red Rocks. Ice Box Canyon. Those hikes are real. I don't fly to Vegas for Vegas anymore. I fly there to keep my sense of family alive.
The lasagna and white penne with chicken were worth the flight alone. There is something about a big loud table of people who have known each other forever that fixes something in you. We are all out here staring at our phones, carefully curating our isolation, and then you sit down at a table with twenty people who are genuinely happy to see you and you remember what the whole thing is supposed to feel like.
In the afternoon before Meow Wolf, my cousin Steve took us out to the ghost town of Goodsprings for lunch.
The place was the Pioneer Saloon, and it has one of the great Hollywood tragedy stories attached to it. In 1942, Carole Lombard, wife of Clark Gable, died in a plane crash on nearby Potosi Mountain, flying out of what is now Las Vegas. The story goes that a grief-stricken Gable came to the saloon and drank, and his cigar ash is supposedly still burnt into the bar. True or not, it’s a good story. A man so wrecked by loss that he needed to put himself somewhere he could feel the weight of it. I understand that feeling.
The building itself has been there since 1913, originally a Sears and Roebuck prefabricated kit structure. Bullet holes still in the walls, the result of a man shot and killed over a card game. The whole thing just sits out there in the desert, largely unchanged, which is either beautiful or terrifying depending on your mood.
On our way back from Goodsprings we stopped at a completely different art installation out in the middle of the desert called The Seven Magic Mountains. Simple enough, but absolutely worth the stop. Beautiful views. Isolated, yet pulling together random commuters along the 15. Everyone was a kid in the dirt, thinking about how they could climb these colorful rocks. Strangers taking photos of each other, laughing at nothing in particular. Stacks of painted boulders in the middle of nowhere doing what a lot of expensive things fail to do: get people to actually be in the moment.
I invited everyone from my family to Meow Wolf. Some had already gone. Some were too tired. The crew ended up being me, my mom, and my cousin Sydney. The installation is inside a warehouse-style entertainment venue called Area 15, which was clearly trying to cater to Vegas locals, because if you had Nevada plates parking was free.
At first we had no idea what we were getting into. There were restaurants, boba cafes, laser tag, mini golf, and what looked like a giant generic big box store called MEGA MART. What we didn’t understand was that the MEGA MART was the beginning of the art. Once inside we quickly realized there were secret doors through the drink coolers leading directly into Meow Wolf.
I could talk about the color-changing fractals that ebbed and flowed with atmospheric music, the completely dark room where all you could see were red lasers, and if you put your hand through them it changed the soundtrack of the room, like the room itself was a giant electronic instrument. Or the cavernous spaces filled with spiritual imagery, mirror floors, and undulating tubes of toxic sludge flowing past. I could tell you about all of that. But I won’t.
I will not say that it's essentially a thematic blend of Apple TV's Severance with eerie nods to the video game Fallout. I will also not tell you it's basically a cultural commentary about the overproduction of capitalism or the hilarious products for sale in the MEGA MART. Like the Salted Peanuts: Nut Free. 100% Salt. Or Bro-DA brand soda. Or the Cucumber Flasks or the chewing gum Doomed Expedition: Arctic Blast (in small letters) It's Not Going Well. I could tell you about all that stuff but I'm not going to.
You know where Vegas is. If this grabs you then get off your duff and go check it out for yourself. And once you experience Meow Wolf, send me a message, and we’ll have that connection, and that will make both of our lives a little more interesting.
On the flight home I hoped to see the middle-aged couple and of course they weren’t there, presumably because their adventure got so wild they died in a fiery crash in a fast car with no top somewhere outside Barstow. I scrolled through my photos and appreciated all the in-person connection I’d felt over the last few days—a salve for my soul.
And as I zoomed in on the blurry photos I’d secretly taken of the middle-aged couple, I spotted something I didn’t think I captured. Something that reminds me that connection is possible, even when you’re acting like a total creep.
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