Bleeding Neon

In the midst of trying (no, really!) to complete a freelance assignment for a client whose unstated deadline is surely approaching, I’m also feverishly customizing holiday cards (yes, way too late to arrive by Christmas but hopefully early enough to arrive before 2009) and … well, apparently being reminded As Yet Unbroken’s website needs updating.

At least this weekend hasn’t been a total wash. On Friday, I snuck away for a few hours to my nearby Starbucks and forced out four pages of layouts/script for this comic book project about which I am telling you nothing. I swear, I got something else done, though I’m not sure what, aside from waiting for the HVAC guy to get our heat working again. Today, one half of the band came over. We recorded bass and guitars for two new songs, and I tricked the guys into helping move furniture (they are easily bribed with liquor), so there’s that.

Frosty, you look so warm. Don't melt!

Friday night, the girlfriend and I went with a few friends to Opportunity Village’s Magical Forest. It’s a completely rad holiday set-up, with dazzling lighting displays donated, and created, by local businesses, a surprisingly sprawling and fun train ride, the requisite Santa photo opp, holiday gift shop and much more. The weather was quite chilly (for Vegas), but it was silly amounts of fun, and it was all for a good cause. And that good cause was me playing target practice with the unfortunate family who didn’t clear the lane on the giant slide upon which I was blazing Earthward like an ICBM. Hey, it was all in good fun, right? Right.

So while I’m possessed by the holiday spirit and whatnot, I figured I’d be nice and bring you some presents early. I’ve rounded up a few of the more eclectic holiday-themed songs I have sitting on my vast hard drive, and I’m presenting them here for your enjoyment and perusal. These links will surely expire within 30 days or self-destruct or something, so get ‘em while they’re hot. Or before the RIAA eviscerates their presence.

• Sufjan Stevens – “Get Behind Me Santa”
• Richard Cheese – “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”
• Radiohead – “Winter Wonderland”

That’s all for now. I’ll save you the pain of recounting last night’s douchebaggery at McFadden’s inside the Rio. Let it just be said that if there is a hell, and I go there, it’s going to look a lot like McFadden’s on a Saturday night.

Alas, Mervyn's, we shopped you well

When I was a younger lad — and by younger I mean living at a time when a Reagan was president and a Jackson ruled the charts — my mother would take my brother and me to Mervyn’s when back-to-school shopping season rolled around. Actually, I’m not sure if that kid got to buy anything, because if I recall correctly, he pretty much wore my hand-me-downs until he hit his pre-teens. OK, that’s probably a gross exaggeration, but either way, I’m getting way off topic here.

So yeah, a lot of my back-to-school shopping for clothing was done at Mervyn’s because, well, my parents weren’t made of platinum credit cards, and really, I was so much of a dork back then it’s not like I would have known the difference. Actually, that’s a lie: I did know the difference. While the “cool” kids were wearing Z. Cavaricci, Guess? and Mossimo, I was rocking the Bugle Boy cargo pants and nameless pastel T-shirts.

Thus, it’s with mixed feelings that I offer up the latest casualty of the funtastic recession plaguing our land. Mervyn’s closed 12 “underperforming” stores in early 2007, bringing its national count down to 177 locations. By July of this year, the Hayward, Calif.-based company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and by October, it filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and began to shutter all of its stores, including the one pictured at Meadows Lane and Decatur Boulevard in Las Vegas — yes, just a hop, skip and closing-sale jump from Steve & Barry’s. As a matter of fact, I noticed another store next to Steve & Barry’s having an “everything must go” 50 percent off sale, so check back soon to see if that entire corner is coming to a crashing economic halt.

Get those cheap threads while you can!

Steve & Barry’s, the retail chain that sells casual sportswear and celebrity-endorsed clothing lines for not more than $10 a pop, opened its first Las Vegas location early this summer. It’s also Steve & Barry’s last Las Vegas location, as the Port Washington, N.Y.-based company filed for bankruptcy in July, not a month after the Vegas location opened just west of the Meadows Mall on Meadows Lane near Decatur Boulevard.

Not surprisingly, most experts blamed rapid expansion for Steve & Barry’s epic failure. Now the company is in the process of liquidating its assets and closing all of its stores.

Stay tuned to Bleeding Neon for more Moments of Zen as we watch the House That Deregulation and Sleeping at the Wheel Built crumble down all around us. Happy Friday!

The Clark County School District called a snow day in Las Vegas. I am not messing with you. Here’s the official word from the CCSD website:

Due to weather conditions and for the safety of students, all Clark County School District schools will be closed today. Students should not report to campus.

“Weather conditions.” They mean snow and ice. It snowed a good portion of the day yesterday, and yes, a few inches stuck to the ground in the valley’s higher elevations. But guess of what there was no sign when I woke up this morning:

My Matrix needs a coat

Snow.

Right. CCSD called a snow day, but there’s no snow. No rain. No inclement weather. What?

Admittedly, I fall in with that group of Las Vegans who grew up somewhere with a wider range of weather changes, a place where a foot or two of snow getting dumped a few times a year wasn’t unheard of. I spent a lot of early winter mornings as a child lying in bed with the radio on, listening to the announcer slowly list off the school closures for the day, hoping and praying my school would soon be called. If not, there was still at least six inches of snow and ice-covered sidewalks outside waiting for my booted feet to trudge through on the way to class.

So I’m understandably befuddled that schools in the Las Vegas area are closed today. I guess because there is no established notification system, given inclement weather in Southern Nevada is so rare, CCSD couldn’t wait until this morning to determine whether or not it was safe for students and buses to travel valley roads, but … I am nonetheless stunned. Especially because when I was 12, there was a significant snow storm here in Vegas, enough so that about six inches packed on the ground. We’re talking snowmen and snowball fights. But was school canceled?

Hell no.

It kind of makes me wonder what’s happened to our society – or at least the microcosm of Las Vegas – in the last 20 years to make the powers-that-be so paranoid. Probably the same paranoia that urges families to live behind gates and walls on the outer edge of the city. But that’s a topic for another time.