Wow, VegasRex is feeling the love from the last post.

It is not often that I get yelled at for reasons that aren’t the main topic of the post, but the past 24 hours have been filled with exactly that. Nobody gives a damn about the housing market, but if you question college, well, that is where the line is drawn.

Here was a typical comment of which there were probably fifty variations:

“It is obvious by your writing that you have never been to college, and that you are just jealous of those of us who have.”

Fair enough.

Maybe that is the case. I’d love for someone to send me on a four year vacation, but the accusations aren’t wholly true.

I did, indeed, go to college, albeit briefly.

“Gee Rex, if you got shitty grades, how did you get into college?”

You see, I was able to put a round ball in a round cylinder on a consistent basis.

That’s it.

So much for “higher education”, eh?

Fuck if I had ever read the Iliad and the Odyssey (I still haven’t) … but I could hit nothing but net from 15 feet … and that meant I was qualified for higher learnin’.

So I “went to college” until I injured my knee. I could have stayed, but I would have needed to get surgery, and being cut open to continue putting a ball into a cylinder didn’t seem to be a terribly bright thing to do. I didn’t really care all that much about the game, it was just a convenient way for me to get out of wherever the hell I was before.

So, for a year, I was “on campus”. And I wanted to shoot myself every fucking day … although I did learn to make a bong out of a cardboard toilet paper roll … and that was kind of cool, so I can’t say that I learned nothing.

My dealings with “college” have always been a bit strange.

A long, long time ago, when I was a still musician, I was a bicycle messenger during the day, and I played gigs at night. There just wasn’t enough money solely playing gigs, and everybody had some other kind of “day job”. I also did photojournalism work, some computer programming here and there, and wrote articles for newspapers … but I always went back to being a messenger.

If you knew the right people, you could make decent money, and you didn’t have a boss. If you had a bike, and some balls, then you could turn it into cash. Often a significant amount of cash. This was back before the fax machine all but killed the “profession”.

I did this in both NYC and Washington DC, depending on where I was living at the time.

When I was a messenger in DC, it was fairly common to get called to one of the colleges in town.

I remember one particular instance when I was called to make a delivery to a dorm room.

I had to stand in a “common area” and wait for the recipient to come out and sign for her delivery. They specifically asked me to wait in the little common area for her to arrive.

The collegiate sweatshirt and frat crowd was hanging around the little cloister thing as well, and when I walked into the area with my hole-embedded cutoff jeans, graffiti covered bike helmet, mirrored sunglasses, and messenger bag, they started to sarcastically poke fun at me.

I remember someone said “Dude, check those pants!” One guy said something that ended with “loser”, and one of the chicks said “Maybe if you go to college, you can afford a whole pair of pants.” and the room chuckled. I remember looking at her fairly closely, simply because I thought it was a curious remark for a chick to make. I expected it from a guy, but not a girl.

Ten seconds later they had forgotten about me, and one of the college dudes said to the other “Dude, are you going to the XXX show tonight?” At this point the chick chimed in and said “Ohhh …. myyyyy …. god, I love them! We’re going over there tonight in Jenna’s car.”

This was met with a round of “sweet” and “awesome”.

“Oh yeah, those guys totally rule.” chimed in some other guy. Everyone seemed to be fairly excited about going to the gig that night. A gig put on by a group of … losers.

I couldn’t really reconcile the whole situation logically. They outwardly appeared to despise and look down on me, yet simultaneously were enthralled at the notion of being associated with my life in some way.

I just stood there and waited for the girl I needed to sign for the delivery, which she did, and I got to listen to the other kids talk about the kegger the night before, who was dating who, and some other random stuff that mostly revolved around social situations.

As I was leaving, one guy turned his attention to me and said “Don’t get hit by a cab!”, at which point everyone started laughing again. I didn’t think it was that witty, but the rest of the room thought it was comic gold.

I didn’t say anything. I never did say anything when people made such remarks. It was interesting to observe, but I never said anything back. There would have been no point.

Later that night, when we took the stage, guess who was front and center?

That’s right, the girl who informed me that I should go to college and buy better pants. Only this time she looked very different. She had on torn jeans, a ripped shirt, and looked every bit the part of a disaffected teenage runaway.

She also didn’t recognize me from a mere six hours before. I had ditched the sunglasses and bicycle helmet, but still had on the same bedraggled pants. Only this time … she did too.

What happened to the well-groomed, bubbly girl chirping and talking about the keg party? I don’t know.

For the next hour or so she thrashed about, supported a crowd surfer, and on several occasions extended her hand past the stage to try and make contact with myself, or any other member of the band who was nearby.

All of a sudden “my kind” was being outright worshiped by the same people who were looking down their noses at us the very same day.

What is the moral to this?

There is no moral. Neither is there a point.

It’s just an anecdote that may mean nothing, or may mean something. It completely depends on the individual as to how they want to interpret it.

But every now and then, when the “college issue” comes up, it takes me back to that day twenty one long years ago.

This brings up the next logical question …

What does any of this have to do with Las Vegas?

Nothing.

I’ve said it before, and I will say it again. This isn’t necessarily a “Las Vegas Website”.

It’s a website created by a guy who lives in Las Vegas.

There is a difference (ie. “Click here to book NOW!“).