"Hey bro! BRO!!"

Pretend I don't hear him. Reverse a little.

"Bro!"

He keeps on yelling. Reverse a little more, let the guy in front of me pull his ass out of the middle of the intersection.

"BRO!!"

Roll down the passenger window, turn down the music.

"You don't have to be so rude, bro. We're in California."

"Okay."

"Seriously, bro, this is California. Calm down, bro."

Is this guy for real? "Okay."

"Seriously, just smoke some good weed and take it easy man."

Wow, this guy's totally for real. "Okay. I didn't know you wanted over, man." A pretty blatant lie. He didn't want to change lanes to turn, he just wanted over because somebody five cars in front of him was turning right, and he didn't want to wait four seconds. Which means I felt like scooting forward. Besides, we weren't going to make the light anyway. For a pothead, he's got a lead foot.

"No worries, man. Just gotta calm down, smoke some weed, take her easy. Two blocks that way."

Mental note to find out what's two blocks east of Sunset and Cahuenga. "Okay, man."

"Medicinal marijuana man, it's good for you."

I wish this guy lived in my building. "Yeah, okay."

"Seriously, it'll get you a girlfriend. It'll get you seven. That's what God says."

So God talks to Ted Haggard, Jerry Falwell, and this guy. Brilliant. "Good to know, bud."

"Just don't tell any of the women about the other ones. It helps with your vision, too."

Is that a dig? "Okay."

At the green light, he's off again, surfboard strapped to the roof of a black VW wagon lightened by dirt.

I first saw Tony's barbershop when doing laundry at a dirty laundromat on Magnolia. The actual name of his shop was Lookin' Good, but I always just referred to it as Tony's.

Tony's was a long narrow room with a small lobby area near the door and a short hallway leading back to the one barber chair in the place. The hallway was marked off by a movable partition that didn't reach the ceiling; I peeked over it one day and glimpsed a cot and a weight bench, which makes me think Tony might have lived there.

The lobby area consisted of a battered old couch and matching recliners, centered around a coffee table featuring scattered remnants of recent newspapers and back-issues of Playboy and Cigar Aficionado. Tony's aspired to be a manly place: Cardboard cutout of Bogey, a couple of Rat Pack posters as well as the inexplicable presence of an original theatrical one-sheet for Superman, and, of course, soft porn. There was always something a little disconcerting that at least a dozen issues of Playboy were circulating through the lobby and bookstand area. The strangest moment came when the man ahead of me finished his haircut and, instead of leaving, picked up a Playboy and plopped down on the couch. I don't know what kind of attention this guy wasn't getting at home, but something was clearly wrong.

The sole barber's chair sat in front of a low table, on which sat a TV/VCR combo and — again — a Playboy. I started to wonder if Tony was trying to tell me something about himself, or if he just wanted to provide healthy testosterone injections into what is usually a pretty dull experience. But it's not like I was about to pick up the magazine and thumb through it while he cut my hair. What would I do? Would I avoid the pictorials and adhere to the articles about how to shop for a roadster or what to do if your teacher starts hitting on you? Or what if I picked it up and he said, "Hey, check her out," or something along those lines. I don't think I could handle that. And Tony was in his 60s, so I don't think his heart would have taken the stress well, either.

But despite all that, Tony's was a great place. He always had the little TV on and would hand me the remote when I sat down. I went there for so long that he needed only the briefest reminder of what kind of haircut to give me, and it was good every time. After a while, I couldn't remember how much the haircut cost, only that the $20 I gave him more than covered it, with a tip. The place was almost never busy, and most days I was the only one there.

Tony's is gone now, why or to where, I don't know. My phone call to make an appointment — even with his small trickle of business, Tony preferred call-aheads to walk-ins — was met with an endless ringing. Not a disconnect or a warning that the number had changed; just the ringing. I drove by and saw that the inside of the tiny storefront had been gutted. Pipes lay everywhere amid chunks of plaster and a few spare paint buckets. The place was emptied, and only half the signs were gone from the outside. The faded decal of a barber's pole was still affixed in the window, but Tony wasn't around.

• The highways cutting east through the San Gabriel Valley become congested even earlier in the day than normal on a Friday afternoon, as if the commuters who work in L.A. but lay their heads in the 'burbs can't wait to get out of Dodge. A sense of exodus permeates even the most casual drive in this direction at this time of day on this day of the week, but it's compounded something like nineteenfold when the destination is that dirtiest of holy grails, that most joyfully desecrated of all America's cities, that dull black rock in the center of Lady Liberty's battered crown: Las Vegas.

• Vegas, it should be pointed out, is America's own personal whore.

• It seems like everyone just calls it Vegas, and that it's been that way forever. The casualness of the address belies the dangerous intimacies on tap in Sin City herself, which works (as everything always does) in the house's favor.

• People usually use "tragic flaw" to mean "unfortunate personality trait," as in "Randy's a raging cokehead. Drag." Or "It's a total bummer that Jennifer has to make small cuts on her thigh to achieve physical pleasure." This quaint, aw-shucks dismissal of anything that could be amiss with someone as nothing more than a minor setback is at best shortsighted, and at worst a horrible, horrible mistake. Because a genuine tragic flaw is that darkest, purest, most ruinous desire that not only ensures the hero's undoing but also defines who he/she is. Las Vegas birthed itself from the desert based on the concept that the hero is nothing without the flaw that will lead to his/her eventual destruction, and the city is determined to offer anything and everything a man or woman could want, not merely as recreational activities, but as a brutal means to a quick, messy end.

• Seriously, avoid blackjack.

• About that whole "America's personal whore" thing: There's a reason Vegas thrives in the desert. The city wouldn't be able to exist in a place that received a lot of natural traffic or attention. Its being out in the desert (a) furthers the sense of otherworldliness, of isolation from any and all responsibilities that will come screaming back into your life at 8 a.m. Monday, (b) tests the resolve of those who travel there, making you crawl through boring stretches of desert along the 15 just to see those bright and deadly lights, and (c) creates an extreme geographical and emotional distance from the rest of the world allows us to do whatever we want there and to basically leave the money on the not-always-metaphorical nightstand. And Vegas accepts this, her wide grin displaying a row of stained, cracked teeth, as she takes our money. We don't go there to bury our sins, or wash them away in some mystic river; we go there to celebrate them, to breathe the dusty air of the desert into their bones and awaken them to all kinds of potential reckless adventures.

• You can yell anything you want on Fremont Street — and I mean anything — and no one will care.

• Drunk cowboys who've been gambling and losing all day are pretty pissy dudes, but their not-incidental level of danger is balanced by the unintentional humor they create. An angry fortysomething guy with a buzz cut and blue polo, topped off by sharply creased Wranglers, is an endlessly entertaining poker companion.

• You need to accept the fact that you will not "be up five hundy by midnight." And cocktail waitresses there do not look at all like Deena Martin. Again, the sooner you accept this, the happier you will be.

• If early evening is the best time to make that drive — the dying sun and looming darkness a reminder of the eternal Friday night you're heading for — then dawn is the best time to make that languorous trip back home. The moonlit fields of Primm actually qualify as moonlit, no poetic license needed, and the pale sun on the bleached sand manages to put the guilt and everything in perspective. Most of that drive doesn't feel like California or Nevada; it doesn't feel like anywhere.

























• It's about doing stupid things precisely because they are stupid. And about accepting that.

Fact #47: "Pasadena" is Spanish for "Here's where we keep all the Asians."

Fact #3: In-N-Out burgers are, ironically enough, made from ground-up immigrants.

The guy working barback at NoBar on Saturday night was definitely an actor. I recognized him, but I couldn't remember from where, since Corona isn't the best memory-jogger. He isn't a major name, but still, he's an actor. I almost asked him what he's been in, but the thought of an actor reduced to slinging drinks in North Hollywood is so stereotypically sad that, rather than be mildly flattered that some random schmuck recognized him, he'd probably be even more depressed at his state in life since my question would only comfirm to him that, yes, he's a recognizable actor who's been forced to serve drinks to make ends meet, and that could have plunged him into an understandably bad existential crisis, and I don't want to be responsible for some guy's suicide.

But he's definitely an actor.

---

"Come out with me."

"Where?"

"El Perro Fumando."

"The Smoking Dog."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"If you wear something blue, you get two dollars off a giant blue margarita."

"You know, I make a pretty good living. I can actually afford to wear what I want and pay full price."

"I'm not promoting the economic upside as much as I am the opportunity to drink something giant and blue."

Costco was disturbingly crowded. I think that this is what every family in the area does for fun on the weekends, especially if they have children with the manners of retarded monkeys. They pile their broods into the van and head to Costco, where they can let their little demon spawn run rampant amid shelves of box wine and 3-lb. boxes of Cheese Nips. My roommate and I just wanted some toilet paper to last a year, not a carnival crowd with kids everywhere.

After we left, my roommate and I stood in the parking lot for half an hour and took turns kicking each other in the nuts to ensure our mutual infertility.

My friend and I needed someplace to eat dinner. We'd each slept till around noon, then watched TV till about 4:30 or so, and were in the mood for a meal. But it was Thanksgiving, and nothing was open. After buying tickets for a movie, we drove around in search of some fast food joint or hole in the wall where we could get dinner, and the only place open near the theater was Numero Uno pizza. We sat at the tiny bar and watched the game while we ate.

I sat to the left of my friend, but two stools to his right there was a loud girl on a cell phone. She was eating a slice of pizza and nursing what was pretty obviously not her first glass of wine that evening as she blared/honked into the phone. She hung up, and despite my best efforts to put out the normal don't-talk-to-me vibe people radiate on elevators and in other situations, the girl turned to my friend and me and introduced herself.

"My name's Barb," she said.

She asked us our names and what we did, and after lying about most of it, my friend got a phone call, during which Drunk Barb scooted over to cut his pizza while he talked on the phone. She hadn't stopped talking the whole time. She just wouldn't shut up. She had sideburns, too, and not the kind of faint whisps of hair that are commonplace on most women, but some serious chops. It was almost fascinating.

We eventually paid and left, leaving Drunk Barb behind. I drive past that Numero Uno every day on my way to work. I could say I wonder what happened to Drunk Barb, but I don't.

I went to Baja Fresh to grab dinner Thursday after work, and was struck by the racial diversity in the restaurant. I've seen Crash, so, needless to say, I was well aware of the potential hotbed of activity into which I'd thrown myself. Would I get out alive?

---

The girl behind the counter that takes my order is Mexican. In fact, all the employees are. Is there some kind of work-release program for illegals? Check on this later.

A black man brushes by me while I stand in line. Is that a knife in his pocket? Why's he wearing a cap? Is that a disguise? Maybe it's gang-related. I edge slowly away. I see he has his son with him; are those stolen Timberlands? Man, this place is a deathtrap.

I see another black guy sitting in the corner. Maybe they're here to watch the Spurs game on the flat-screen TV mounted on the wall next to the salsa bar. Typical.

The action on the TV cuts from the game to a crowd interview with Steve Nash. I feel a flood of recognition: This is what the Mexicans have been waiting for! Commie propaganda!

Seriously, we're one trash can through a window away from some serious riots here.

---

Before I saw Crash, I would have just thought we were all trying to grab a late-night taco. But now I know better.

Thank you, Paul Haggis.

Thank you.