I’ve
long wanted to take an art shit with the Vegas I remember as the
centerpiece. I’ve had an impulse
to go back on one of my visits and take pictures of all the nothing places I
remember. The real home I had in
there. In all the years I lived in
Las Vegas it never seemed like I lived in LAS
VEGAS. LAS VEGAS was a million miles away from my life pretty much the
whole time I lived there.
There
are still a few places in that town which haven’t changed at all over the years
and chances are good they’ll never change at this point, except maybe in
degradation as the sands eventually envelop the town. You know the spots I mean if you live there. It’s a filthy city. The daylight has always been the enemy
of that town in more ways than one.
It’s a tribute to the graveyard shift lifestyle since no one has to see
the shit because everyone gets up at noon anyways. At least I did.
When I look back on my time there it seems like I cut mornings out of my
schedule for over a decade once high school was done. Another tradition that my Vegas citizenship gave me. My inability to sleep before 2am.
That
place is becoming more and more a distant memory that I’ve really started to
cherish in a masochistic way.
Mornings in Las Vegas. The
shivering winter mornings, and the blistering Summer ones. Dusty, barely holding on grass in the
bone dry schoolyard. Playing
football in 110˚ sunshine. All
day. The chicken wire and stucco
houses, the roach infested apartment buildings, the parking garages which
reappeared in my dreams for years.
Piles of huge rocks. The
broken glass and gun shells everywhere. Apocalyptic playgrounds. We’d burn the shit to ground. That’s what the environment is for in Vegas. There’s just so much of it. Or at least there was. Now I’m a little hard pressed to find
the vacant lots or long expanses of desert within the valley. I found out if you go to the east side
there’s still a few pockets here and there.
I
lived in Vegas for over 20 years so it’ll always be under my skin. I’ll never be able to wash that dirt
off. Visits to the city have been
infrequent and mixed over the years but every time I return I feel like I never
even lived there at all. Which
doesn’t surprise me. When I lived
there I wasn’t really there. Shit
I’m barely here right now.
But
I consider myself lucky for experiencing all the shit I did while living
there. I got away with a lot and
somehow managed to survive relatively intact. It feels like no one should be able to escape that place
alive but I’m just feeding into Vegas own myth saying shit like that. Or maybe it’s just that I’m still
wondering why I’ve lived so long myself.
Tearing yourself to pieces was always the favorite pastime of the Vegas
people and it’s a tradition I’m still trying to crawl out from under.
The
things I’m most obsessed with are things that don’t exist anymore in that town
and in the world at large. That’s
probably why history has become such an obsession of late. And maybe these are the things that
don’t exist in myself anymore? Innocence. Youth. Destruction for destructions sake at a moments notice. Easy answers. Deep shit. The
small time hustle. Ok maybe I
still got the connection to the small time hustle.
Anyway,
I was in Vegas in January and I wanted to make some progress on an art idea
with what little time I had, which ended up being a few hours. I hoped to find those things in my mind
which were still out there in the real world to photograph and remember. It was a chance to photograph my
memories of the places that are still around. The real places I touched one time, the places which used to
brush up against me. I went out
knowing I would never have the time or patience to find Old Ladies Cave, Hell
Town, Mr. Wuji’s house, the fucked up ditches we vandalized, or the dozens of
other rat’s nests that filled my brain, I decided to just fucking drive and
stop to take photos at whatever was fucking cool. Go art!
I’ve
always been straight up east side.
So I gravitated East of Eastern stopping here and there. After a while it got to be too much
trouble so I opted to videotape my ride.
These short videos are the result.
There’s not much effort that went into filming this but there was some
time taken in the editing process.
Maybe this is just an exercise to keep my mind occupied. I don’t know. I think it’s cool so fuck you.
I’m
not trying to impose glamour on a subject that’s obviously lacking, nor am I
trying to be ironic. This was an
active attempt to make memories “real” if capturing images digitally from a
moving vehicle can make things any more “real.” Twenty years from now maybe these vids will be memories for
some but I wonder if much can change in these neighborhoods which haven’t
changed much in thirty years time or more.
It’s
not my intention to make some social/economic/political statement here. It’s too easy read this as such and so
to me that’s boring. It’s
impossible not to divorce those thoughts from your head if you contrast this
with the usual images that come to mind when we collectively envision LAS
VEGAS. Instead I hope that I’m
helping to open up a world that has been tucked away even though it’s in plain
sight. I hope this video will help
to reintroduce viewers and creators to the beauty of the ordinary. How’s that for being fucking profound.
The
editing isn’t too complicated but some will find it annoying. Jump cuts abound, as well as
manipulation of the time and space.
I’m going for a combination of reality and trickery that plays into the
unreliable nature of memories. It’s
also an homage to the hundreds of films shot in Las Vegas where the geography
is completely out of whack.
I’m
sure a lot of people come to this blog with an overwhelming sense of nostalgia
and I’ve certainly played into that.
This is probably the most blatant wax of nostalgia I’ve done so far here
on the blog but there’s still time for me to do more cliché observations and
inane arts fuckoffs. Instead
I’ll rationalize that I see this as an exercise in making a history where there
isn’t one. Another cute tradition
of Vegas that makes me laugh to keep from puking.
There’s no final destination
in these videos so for me the road going nowhere is dripping with anxiety. It would be easy to say there’s nowhere
to go in the middle of nowhere.
But if you’ve spent anytime in Vegas you’ll believe you been somewhere special. And you’re right. There’s no pace like it in the whole
fucking world. There’s no place
like Tokyo either. No place like
Tecumseh, Missouri. No place like
Kabul. Or y’know shit like that. I know it’s hard not to but don’t get a
swelled head Vegas.
Since I’ve spent a little bit of time on this short project I
can make the observation that this video was maybe an attempt to follow the
long bus route we took going from Quanna Mcall 6th grade center back
to the far east side. Now I wish
I’d continued going down Carey Avenue to see that school as it is today. Also City View park. Damn! I wonder if that Star Trek spaceship is still there. Jesus fuck that park was ghetto.
A
soundtrack would be distracting and pointless. Yay for fucking art.
Feel free to download this art below.
Download All six files below:
Vegas that don't change •2•
