All I Want Is Everything

Vegas nights

Sorry this is short! It's at a good break, though.

Hit the road, Jack and don't you come back no more, no more, no more, no more
Hit the road, Jack and don't you come back no more.

Ray Charles, Hit the Road, Jack

The six pack of trouble arrived at Las Vegas just after noon on Thursday, and they were booked through until Sunday night. Everybody had things they wanted to do and see, so while Vegas wasn't terribly unsafe they still wanted to do the buddy system for the most part. Ella's tattoo appointment was the major exception, and she had arranged specially with Ned to do it on Sunday morning before they left; the others planned to sleep in. They sat down together and mapped things out—performances they had tickets for, places to gamble, dance, and eat, and anything else they might think about, and before long they had many events that they would all go to as well as breaking into smaller groups.

While Ella would have preferred to stay at a different hotel, the others were pretty excited at the prospect of staying at Caesars, and she had no intention of raining on anybody's parade. They got rooms all in a row, two to each room in order to have somebody to talk to in the mornings and evenings. Ella and Bec, Kate and Jessica, and Wanda and Yelena. Jessica could be prickly, and Kate was good with people like that. Everybody was happy, and once they checked in, it was nap time until dinner and a night on the town. They did some gambling, nobody losing much, then had tickets to the "Jubilee" burlesque show. The costumes were stunning and feathery, designed by Bob Mackie for over-the-top glamor. Then they went to a nightclub where nobody sat in favor of dancing and indulging in interesting and over-priced cocktails before finally returning to their rooms around three in the morning.

There was brunch the next morning/early afternoon, then the group split up. Yelena and Kate wanted to go on the Red Rocks tour that Ella had taken the first time she'd stayed in Vegas. Bec and Wanda wanted to see the shop where Ella had gotten her boa, poke around off the Strip, and Jessica was coming along for that, then they'd hit the casinos lightly until it was time to get ready to go out. They were going to see a Siegfried and Roy show and go to different nightclubs.

So that was Friday.

Saturday morning they got up a little earlier for spa treatments, massages, manicures, pedicures, and facials. Ella went with a rich, dark electric blue, less cliched than rocker's black. That color was claimed by Jessica, "like her attitude," she said. It was true that she could be a lot and she was abrasive, but fundamentally a good person and she had a snarky sense of humor that was entertaining. Wanda got a foxy orange shade close to her hair color, Bec went for a shocking pink, Kate for lavender, and Yelena got the strangely specific red that was "almost veinous." She was so blithe about it that her manicurist thought she was a med student. Ella decided that she would never ask Yelena for information about her employment.

That night was the prize of the whole experience, attendance at David Bowie's Glass Spider tour. They didn't have the greatest seats, but they felt lucky to be there at all. Bowie had a massive stage set, the focus of which was this enormous giant, illuminated spider that seemed a little tacky (not that any of them would say). There were video screens so that they could see on the stage better, high scaffolding for Bowie and the dancers, and he had wireless mikes. Ella was fascinated and made mental notes. She loved other people's concerts. While her style didn't lend itself to campy electric spiders, Bowie was a tremendous showman and she learned a lot from watching. The dancing was different from what you'd typically see in American shows, there were little vignettes that evoked sadness and other emotions, showcased with theatricality. Bowie wore a three-quarter, single-breasted red suit that was a little odd but very elegant on him for the first act, and a gold leather suit with red winged cowboy boots in the second act. Bowie also had unusually signed a sponsorship agreement with Pepsi, which was controversial among the musicians she knew. It allowed for the elaborate set and in return, he and Tina Turner had done a commercial for the pop company. A lot of people were yelling about selling out like they'd been arbiters who could speak comprehensively about how to be a musician, but Ella thought that there was nothing wrong with making money from your music. Bowie played a lot of Ella's favorite songs, including "Fashion," "Never Let Me Down," "Heroes," "Young Americans," "The Jean Genie," "Let's Dance," and "Fame. "The encore consisted of "Time," "Blue Jean," "I Wanna Be Your Dog," and "Modern Love." It was an utter spectacle, wildly creative, and Ella loved how it pushed boundaries as much as the music. She didn't think she could get away with something like that; her aesthetic was so different from Bowie, but surely she could up her game for the next tour....