What is that low moaning like pained ghostly presences I hear rushing at me from each direction? Oh, it's you, Nancy Nancy Nancy where are yoooooooooooo?

Well nope I did not perish back & forth from Plasticville = Las Vegas.
I did my thing there, wandering the strip and into a selection of wedding chapels with camera, tape recorder and beloved legal pad - and ideas abrew. I witnessed two weddings on Wednesday, one featuring Elvis in the role of officiator.
Here's an insider's fun fact: when a couple is married in Vegas they are first actually married by a judge in robes and then Elvis does a ministerial thing "for entertainment." Three songs is the norm and a certain Elvis of the Elvis Fleet gives the new bride a complimentary satin scarf atop his usual $100 fee. Anyone can have Elvis show up at their nuptials if they throw a little Ben Franklin luvv about.

At wedding #1 I was one of five people in the chapel - b&g, reverend so&so, photographer and Your Fav Nancy. At wedding #2 I was one of ten. At wedding #2 a girl who was shooting with a funsaver until the official photographer told her to stop, told me in a near whisper before the ceremony that she hoped to exchange vows with her honey, the best man, one day at Viva Las Vegas Chapel. But she wants a goth wedding. That means the reverend pops out of a coffin at the center of the altar to begin the proceedings. Dracula and Bride of Frankenstein-esque apparel are optional.

What is Vegas? A fantasy strip of plastic and scads of money tossed into the wind in the wrong direction: casinos are the gas-guzzling fuel of the city which rests in a prehistoric bowl of mountain and rock and long-gone critters. Casinos spend billions on the right faux looks, fabrics, dusky sky ceilings, training for employees to effuse whichever themed jubilance is necessary and not more than a smittance goes to anything an uppity Easterner might refer to as culture.

I did manage to sniff out the only bit of major culture in the joint, The Art of the Motorcycle, at Guggenheim Las Vegas - and I have the bitchin' $38 t-shirt to fuckin' prove it. What gorgeousness $20 million can be gleaned from the brain of Frank Gehry. Why is there not more of that? I wondered that a lot.

I took snappy photos of the backstage crap going on - with lovely Diana and with an unobtrusive Olympus.

Being me and loving the idea of tesing fate in a smirky way, I pumped some bills into the slots and second ass-hitting the front row seat doubled my ca$h. Did I stop? Silly question. It took about two hours of up and down before I was over and out.

So now my head is swilling with impressions and facts and near-facts and off-record back-stabbing accusations of wedding chapels and tomorrow is designated as Barf Out the Story Day. And I know it'll be grand. Like the Grand Canyon, another desert point of interest.

And let's move on to last night, which followed the morning of my return flight which led into immediate work, and Madeleine Albright's visit. MA = well-dressed and hates the photojournalist. Her assistant was a nuisance and at one point, as I kept gently nudging her out of my goddamned frame, she said You're KILLING ME with the camera. I had not a nanosecond to look in her way (as Albright was working through the crowd steadily and had but 300' of floor before she was leaving via back door) and kvetched out I'm just doing my job. Then she abated her press hatred. Only I was not press at that moment but a paid photog to document glad-handing of former Sec.of State and High Rolling university donors.

Albright was preceded by a big psych-out. At dinner with two pals my caller id on cell showed a Chicago-area number. It was not. It was Artist Kenneth from Amsterdam, who is an epinw FAN.
Albright was followed by a big freak-out. After attending a warbling and disconcerting Music Awards ceremony felt a need to be with My People so headed to the local gin mill where I sporadically find myself behind the bar as celeb guest bartender, which again transpired. Another night, another fresh bottle of Cuervo. Me and the bargirls did our best to evaporate that liquid refreshment and it was good. It was also a night of 3-D on-velvet paintings which I looked at with one of the bargirls.
Tequila + 3-D goggles + 3-D paintings - disconcerted feeling x82 jubilance = big yes.