Entering the Blogosphere

A surge of nostalgia coursed through the mainline of my conscious thinking as I drove down 80th street. I remember driving onto the LMU campus for the first time via this route. The first time I ventured down 80th street into the realm of decadence that is LMU, I felt humbled by this institution of higher knowledge. This time, as I headed away from the wedding-white ethos of Los Angeles' Jesuit playground, I felt calloused and hyper-aware. During this most recent fall break, I reversed the polarity of that first trip down 80th—taking my mind and body out of the Jesuit oasis and dragging them across the desert to a sin pit known as Las Vegas.

People all over the world are captivated by Las Vegas. The allure of this maniacal locket, swaying casually around the neck of Uncle Sam—enticing our senses with every color in the known spectrum—is indeed strong. The days when the mob ruled Vegas with an iron fist are over—at least on the surface. Vegas' strip has become a schizophrenic Disneyland. It is a place where parents take their children to get them used to swimming with the sharks. As for myself, I had never been there in my life until this trip. But I grew up in a culture that idolized the Vegas family vacation: Dad throwing craps, Kids playing first-person shooters in the arcade, and Mom getting that long deserved massage from some young dude who induces delusions of pool-guy-fantasy grandeur. But these people are simply filler—bodies to make the place look appealing and popular. They provide the perfect camouflage for the degenerates and culture junkies.

This is not supposed to be another obscure account of a word weirdo’s trip to the city of Las Vegas. But it was during this trip to Vegas that my private musings about this country bubbled over. I was totally transfixed during my short stint on the strip by what was happening around me. I watched my fellow citizens throw money to the desert wind, only to return home to California where massive fires were consuming the safety of hilltop suburbia.

I suppose what I am getting at is that I am terribly confused by the condition and the identity of an American living in the post-modern age. Here we are in our cocoon, throwing money at sketchy Vegas dealers, dreading 10-year-olds armed with matches, and all the while a holy war is taking place on the other side of the world.

Hopefully this is a sufficient hop onto the blog bandwagon. Above is the first appetizer to be served in an ostensibly multi-coursed meal.