Many years ago, when I saw the cast of Friends hanging out all night in some coffee shop, I thought, wow, here’s a fad that won’t last. I meant to say: Friends—an awful show—I knew coffee shops had a place in my future, in the same way that Jennifer Aniston and Courtney Cox probably did not.  I only came to appreciate coffee, and those gathering niches that serve it, after I actually owned the laptop myself.  Besides, what did we do in coffee shops before laptops?  Knit?

For my last trip to Vegas, I decided to look beyond the flashing and blinking lights of Sin City and really rate this town.  Sorry, the blinking lights of Vegas are about as close to Christmas as you're going to get here at the Discord.  The biggest hurdle to my destination came in the form of a brewpub, the Boiler Room, in Laughlin, Nevada.  This pub, constructed like the bowels of a giant ship, had a sign out front that read: Thirsty Thursdays: All Drafts 1 Dollar.  It happened to be Thursday and I was, in fact, thirsty.  Hmmmm.  I opened my wallet and implemented an old college equation.  A dollar a beer, so if I have eighty-dollars in my wallet...then that means I have...er, carry the one...a shit load of beer!

Nowhere, AZ - My Saturday started out typically enough.  I left the house around 9:00AM to hit the trio grande of local coffee shops, then a bookstore, then lunch, then a beer.  I drank enough caffeine over the next several hours to give even Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas the jitters.  I snagged a used copy of the Tibetan Book of the Dead and then, quite uncharacteristically, embarked on a solo bar crawl (typically I invite friends for solo bar crawls).  For my first drink, I decided on a place called the Wine Nook and ordered an Old Rasputin.  Reading the Tibetan Book of the Dead called for compatible refreshment.  Four attractive women were sitting at the end of the bar.  They introduced themselves. Apparently, it was the brunette’s birthday and they were in for a weekend of partying.

Buried deep in the heart of New England is an American treasure frequently, and tragically, overlooked.  Indeed, while the average American is convinced that only one Stonehenge exists—somewhere in England—buried in the foliage-filled woods of Salem (NH, that is) lies a magical place known as America's Stonehenge. Indeed, England's Stonehenge is but a sad circle of stones in comparison.

Here are some of the dos and don’ts when driving around the Phoenix area

Haneyville, PA—We Discordians have congregated at an annual party for about twenty years now.  No one knows exactly why; it’s best not to question these things.  Every June, like those Capistrano swallows, we migrate to a remote Pennsylvanian cabin deep in the Black Forest region of Sproul State Forest (thankfully not to spawn).  The last party got a little strange…and not in the usual, bean fight, tree duct-tapping, naked fire dancing kind of strange.  I’m talking real strange…

This short lived mobile meat phenomenon brought new meaning to the phrase Las Vegas Strip.  The article in today’s Las Vegas Review Journal ‘Mobile Strippers Derailed’ has me both gladdened and sadden.  It is nice to see Sin City has its limits, but on the other hand Live Mobile Strippers!  Damn, I’m sorry to see them go-go.  As a Las Vegas cabbie, I can tell you, the last few weeks the meter wasn’t the only thing going up.  These mobile pleasure palaces brought myself—as well as other cab drivers, pedestrians, tourists, and everyone else in Vegas for that matter—to near Nirvana and to near death experiences.

The Monte Vista is the centerpiece of downtown Flagstaff, AZ.  The hotel is also believed by locals to be quite haunted.  Built in 1926, the old structure stands as a testament to the ingenuity of the new world’s frontier pioneers, the people of the land, the common clay of the great American west…you know, morons.   The hotel is complete with a Phantom Bellboy who reportedly—and I’m not making this up—knocks at random doors and in a muffled voice says “room service”.   Talk about an unimaginative afterlife. 

I am worried about my friend, Mick. Unlike all the other Discordians, Mick believes he needs to better himself.  Mick strives for lofty misguided goals in order to overcome his many inadequacies. He used to have a distinct, although often overbearing, personality and sense of humor.  But, at least you knew what you were getting with Mick, trouble.   Now he is only a shell of his old self.  I refer to this shell as ‘m’.

With the spring breakers getting on my nerves, and the International Meeting of Procrastinators (IMP) postponed yet again, late March seemed as good a time as any to take a break from transporting strangers around in a Las Vegas taxi. So, I drove two of my friends to Phoenix for WrestleMania 26, or WrestleMania XXVI as it was known in Roman times. Even though I’m a much bigger fan of old school pro-wrestling than today’s version, WM is still a damn fun event.  Besides, I’ve lived in Las Vegas almost 14 years and had yet to make it to Phoenix. It only seems fair I should spend some money there, since so many Phoenicians tip me on a daily basis.

Prior to this year’s Thanksgiving feast, my sister sent me out into the wilds of Phoenix to retrieve something called a gravy separator. She typically chooses a "special job" that matches my talents (aka: a job that even I can’t screw up).  There is long history here of bringing back the wrong cooking sherry, the wrong cranberry sauce, or the wrong homeless person that I met at the bar on the way over.  She obviously decided to throw care into the wind this year by sending me to a large kitchen store.  This was clearly above my pay grade. It was not some recent increase in confidence, mind you, for the ‘just pick up some ice’ fiasco was still fresh on her mind (ice also has a drug slang connotation).   

This yarn is embellished approximately one-to-five percent due to age-related cognitive-decline, also known in certain Discord circles as Dave Atsals’ Syndrome (DAS).  This tale is going to sound fictitious, like many of my stories, but I can assure you that those who knew me in the eighties and nineties would understand.  You see, I settled down in the twenty-first century, when Dean Moriarty somehow morphed quietly into Ward Cleaver. Anyway, back in the Bruce Springsteenesque glory days, the night was dark and stormy.  OK, the moon was very full, which may or may not have inspired me to dress like Lon Cheney’s version of the Wolfman.  You know, old school.  This was before American Werewolf in London, before Underworld, or even before Old School, for that matter.  Back in those days we only had Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, and Warren Zevon to frighten us.  If that didn’t work, my GPA usually did the trick.  

My wife and I have spent considerable amounts of time and money in downtown New Hope, Pennsylvania. For those of you unfamiliar with this cozy little playhouse town, it’s well worth the stop. One weekend, while vacationing there, I even proposed to my wife (along with several other women who happened to pass at the time). We always try to hit New Hope whenever we’re within a hundred miles of the joint.

One hundred and fifty miles northwest of Las Vegas, amidst the barren wasteland of Central Nevada, sits one of the most controversial areas in our country (besides Michael Vick’s Animal Shelter).  I’m talking, of course, about Rachel, Nevada, a one mailbox town so devoid of life it didn’t even appear on my GPS (and it really only has one mailbox, which also did not appear on my GPS).  The nearest real town to Rachel is sixty miles to the south.  There is no cell phone service and no gas station in or around Rachel.  The town motto is ‘Don’t Run Out of Gas in Rachel.’   They’re not kidding.  To accentuate that point, there is a sign next to the town motto that says, ‘We’re Not Kidding!’

The para-abnormal research team consisted of Ranger Rick, who both led the investigation and set the pace (three pints an hour), Pierce Winslow, our tech-guru (who wrote the whole thing off as a business expense), Pokey McDooris, philosopher and sideshow attraction, Timmo O’Frynn, driver and camera man, Bob Krazmoski, treasurer and straight man, and, yours truly, Mick Zano, addiction counselor/beer enthusiast.

The night was moist and clingy like a BBQ-sauce-smeared wet nap.  A damp chill hung in the air like a BBQ-sauce-smeared wet nap.  OK, I’m out of similes.  I got nothing.  As fate would have it, there were far too many eateries and drinkeries within walking distance of our hotel to do any justice to the ghosts of Gettysburg.  In a spirits vs. spirits grudge-match in my world, the carboxyl group version trumps ectoplasm every time.  Some people shake at the sight of spirits; I shake when I don’t get enough of the other kind.

A cultural parasite festers within the taverns and barrooms of America. Machinery grinds at our souls and sucks at our wallets. When the internet jukebox first hit the scene, we were lured by the unlimited access to songs and the improved sound quality.

I am worried about my friend, Dave. Unlike most of our fellow Discordians, Dave never made the successful transition from the bar scene to the coffee shops.  Dave never even made the ever important transition from the bars to the pubs either.  In fact, if memory serves, he never made the transition from junior high to high school, but that’s a different story (spelled GED, incidentally).