“Free Enterprise. The American Dream. Horatio Alger gone mad on drugs in Las Vegas. . . . Every now and then when your life gets complicated and the weasels start closing in, the only real cure is to load up on heinous chemicals and then drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas. … Just roll the roof back and screw it on, grease the face with white tanning butter and move out with the music at top volume, and at least a pint of ether.”
— Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
OK, the original plan had been to drive to Vegas, but that was before life got complicated and the weasels forced me to spend a whole week blogging about their sordid ObamaCare scam — about which, the less said, the better.
Among the unfortunate side effects of that disaster, however, was the catastrophic scrambling of my travel plans because I needed an extra day or two to finish up arrangements in Washington before leaving, and because the drive time from here to Nevada is 38 hours, the cross-country itinerary wouldn’t work out if I was going to be there to pick up Ali Akbar at Las Vegas McCarran International Airport for the trip to Searchlight to catch the start of the Tea Party Express III tour.
And if any of that makes sense to you, you need more drugs. That makes two of us, but don’t worry. Gonzo is a pre-existing condition and, thanks to Bart Stupak, now we can bill taxpayers for our heinous chemicals.
Never mind. Hit the tip jar, because I paid $528 for the cheapest possible round-trip to Vegas, leaving here Thursday afternoon and not returning until next Wednesday. Mrs. Other McCain is already mad enough without me getting stuck with that tab, even though I’ll be saving money by crashing on Steve Foley’s sofa in Vegas. Plus, I’ll have to pay $75 a day for a rental car so I can drive Ali to Searchlight, hang out a few hours, then turn around and drive back to Vegas in time for Ann Coulter’s appearance at the Henderson Pavillion.
After that day of insanity and whatever weirdness Foley gets me into Saturday night, then I’ve got to get up Sunday morning and drive 300 miles (20 cents per mile = $60) to meet the Tea Party Express in Phoenix, Arizona, where Barbara Espinosa of American Freedom blog has promised me face-time with J.D. Hayworth and Vernon Parker. So I’ll spend Sunday and Monday in Phoenix, drive another 300 miles back to Vegas on Tuesday morning, and do some more reporting on the campaign against Harry Reid before catching a red-eye back home with a 3-hour layover in Minneapolis.
Only a lunatic would attempt to cram all this into six days. So hit the tip jar, because where else are you going to find a lunatic who’s also a professional journalist?
“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”
— Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ’72
