#which is better: full-speed dancer or gambling dancer????

[babygray]

Gintama「AMV」- Bakuchi Dancer

[shotsbytheprince-blog]

I hate the weather in Las Vegas. I'm from the Great White North, Canada. The hottest our summers have ever gotten was 35 degrees celsius. So when I stepped out of the airport into 44, oh man I was sweating bullets. And to have a consistent hell-like weather with the sun beating down like a truck...well I just wasn't having it. We still went out and enjoyed what Las Vegas had to offer but not without sweat and teaes trailing our way home. And you could NOT imagine how much we sweat walking from The Stratosphere Hotel towards The Smith Centre. If it wasn't for one of my closest friends performing, you can bet I wouldn't have made the 40 odd minutes walk. We did and I'm glad we did. But I'm getting a bjt ahead of myself, let me start after getting off the plane. This was my first time going to Las Vegas with just friends. I went with two of my closer friends, David and Anthony. Although Anthony insisted that his performance was just a gateway to get us to Las Vegas, David and I knew it was our sole purpose to help and support our brother out. So we hopped out our second plane. The first flight was mediocre, the second had movies and I watched Beauty and the Beast pretty much all through the flight. My buddy David and I heard stories of our airline-which-shall-not-be-named losing luggage. The relief and grief I felt when I saw the pink shoe string tied luggage bag was insurmountable. I overpacked, and if I lost everything then oh boy was I screwed. So now we were waiting for our welcome party, a.k.a Anthony's dad. Although I've known him for years, I've never met his parents. Seeing Anthony as a cool, happy, easy-going guy made me feel at ease. Then meeting his dad, I understand where he gets all this from. Anthony's dad, Tony, is a very nice guy. Down to earth, open minded, and funny down to the bone. We had been worried about what we'd do for food and the first thing he told us was "you can come to our hotel whenever you guys are hungry." HALLELUJAH! Praise the heavens because that just saved us a ton of money. We went to their hotel first thing and has the best rice and chicken I've ever had. Or maybe it was free or great news to have these meals. Our hotel wasn't far from them. It was about a ten minute walk and it was worth it for food...even in this heat. So we went to check in at our hotel. Oh man it looked so good from the outside. An observation deck, different sets of elevators, a diner, a starbucks, and a really good lookong fine dining restaurant. Then we got into our room. The happiness was flushed from our face and it was replaced with confusion. Oh, at first glance the room looked like any other hotel room. Which shouldn't be, or isn't, the case for hotels in Vegas. Pros, the beds were comfy, there was a washroom, and a television. Cons, our view was a wall, the lights flickered waaay too much when first turned on,   shitty floor, shitty channels, shitty outlets, we saw this one trailer about addiction almost every commercial break and it was incredibly dark, and the wifi was complete and utter shit. Granted, the room was free and it was just a place to sleep. The wifi was a problem for us because two of us are content creators and we wanted to upload while we were there. The only reason we spent so much time in that room was because it was incredibly hot. We went out for food, to look for places to take photos, to go to the outlets, and our friend's performance. Don't get me wrong, we did enjoy Vegas. We took a lot of photos, and the Strip was a great experience. We found some gem spots to do a shoot, found some great deals (even with the conversion rate), and found some culture in the back ends we were in. The Las Vegas was just as flashy as movies portrayed them. We didn't gamble, but we did get to enjoy what everything had to offer. From shows and locations like Venice and Paris, to the flamingo conservation and seeing flamingos for the first time in my life. But we never fell into the Sin-like lifestyle of Vegas. Call us squares or lame but we are more scenic or in-the-moment people.   Throughout our whole vacation, Anthony had rehearsals. So he'd leave early and come back late at night. We'd have time to hang out and talk, but most of the trip was just David and I. Nothing wrong with that, it was fun. And we wanted Anthony to perform his best and blow everyone's mind. So here comes Saturday. The day of Anthony's performance. He was up at 7 and left before any of us got up because we went to the Strip the night before. David and I spent the morning working on our crafts, his was a video and I was sorting through photographs. We had to be at the Smith Center by 3pm so we had a lot of time to kill. We didnt really do much, but we got distracted and got ready late. By the time we left the door, it was almost 2:30pm and it was a 40 minute walk. By the way, our end of the hotel had 6 elevators but still took forever for an elevator to come by so we were definately running late. Not just that, but it was the hottest day in the whole week, 47 degrees. A 40 minute walk, 47 degrees, and two Canada-raised folks did not equal a swell time. We rushed it. We didn't walk normally, we speed walked. At least 3 times that walk, I contemplated not going. Our shoes were burning. Our shirts were soaked in sweat. We turned a 40 minute walk into 20. So by the time we got to the theatre, we looked like we just hopped out of the pool. Waist up anyways. Luckily, we brought an extra shirt to change out of. We used our already soaked shirts to wipe off our sweat. So we got out tickets. Balcony, row H seats 216 and 217. The show wasn't really a show. It was a benefit put on by Broadway in the H.O.O.D (Helping others open doors). So it was an arrangement of singers and dancers. Our friend Anthony was the only poet. We were so far from the stage that we could barely see who was performing. Not that it really took much away. Every performance was beautiful. The singers blew me away, and the dancers were sharp and flowed well. There were kids performing. Around the age 12 and they blew me away. Their lack of stage fright, full resevoir of confidence and singing voice sent chills down my spine. I was overwhelmed by them and thought wow, nothing could top this feeling. That was, until Anthony hit the stage. No introduction, just a fluid transition from one performance to him on stage left with the spot light on him. No props, no music, just him and his voice. Flick. He started. His piece was openly about a lighthouse. By openly about, I mean it was written and titled around the use and purpose of a lighthouse. But it was open to interpretation, and still held that the true meaning behind the poem was for his mind alone. He wasn't nervous. He spoke with confidence, and captivated the ears and minds of everyone  in the audience. Flick. The words smoothly escaped his lips and drowned everyone in them while still guiding. Flick. Everyone was focused on just Anthony. All eyes were on him, and all ears were filled with words. Flick. A shiver swept my body as his voice grew stronger and louder. I could feel how proud David and I were of Anthony. How proud we were to see him perform in front of 2,500 people. To not miss such a big event in his life. To share it with him. To listen and see him radiate confidence with every word. It was inspiring. Flick. Exit stage left. He was done. The crowd cheered for him. There was a girl behind David who was more vocal about it. But the applause was strong that night. He may not have gotten to everyone that night, but you can tell the ones he touched. They clapped louder than anyone else. But not as loud as David and I. We left after first intermission. We were honestly not interested in any one else performing except Anthony. They were all great, but we were already blown away. We ubered back to our hotel because that walk was a no-go. Not sweating through another shirt. When we got back to our hotel, we ordered some food and just rested up. We were awaiting Anthony's return to congratulate him and celebrate. But before he got home, he had to eat dinner with his parents. So we took more time to rest, even watched Hot Tub Time Machine 2. Oh crap, its one of our last days in Vegas and I forgot to go souvenir shopping! So I dipped out right after the movie ended to go to the souvenir store down the street. Once I exited the hotel, who do I see? It was Anthony coming back from dinner. We hugged  it out and I extended by congratulations and told him my favourite parts. He joined me in buying souvenirs because he wanted to pick up some booze to celebrate before heading out. He picked up some Bacardi and arizonas to experiment mixes. We got back to the hotel room and it was just full of praise and admiration for Anthony. We were proud, and we were wanted to show it. We kicked off the rest of this life changing nignt by Anthony sharing his experience with us down to every detail. How he felt, how he was kept in the dark the whole time, the people he met, the way he didnt know if he was supposed to be there, and forgetting all the words right before getting on the stage. This made his performance even more impressive. But through it all, he had explained how he didn't feel any fear. He said he felt free. Even when he forgot the words, he didn't feel scared. He knew the words would come to him. In summary, his experience was inspiring. He showed his strength in facing what should've been a nightmare. He said the view from our hotel window was very humbling. This summarized his whole experience. The view of the wall was his struggles, and he looked them dead on and didn't flinch. Strength. We started drinking. This experimental mix was definately...new but it wasn't bad. The more we drank, the better it was. But isn't that with all alcohol? But we drank a bit too much and wondered what the heat and this level of drunk would turn out to be. Out of better judgement (wow, while drunk), we stayed in and continued talking. We shared some high school stories and drove down memory lane. We went to the same high school but I was a year older so we didn't have any classes together. I told them my favourite teacher was Mrs. Nevins. She cared about her students and showed unconditional support. We brought up our CPTs which was the huge final project, abbreviation for Culminating Performance Task. It was a newspaper-like article in which we write a story about an event in our life which had a lesson or was funny. Mine was about a lucid dream I had about someone I used to love. The moral to mine was things have an end for a reason. Holding on is a lot harder than letting go. It seemed corny repeating it back to them. David's was more personal. He talked about a father figure he had his whole life who ended up going to Iraq for a Peace Keeping mission. But he was then captured and tortured for months. Imagine seeing someone almost everyday with a smile on their face, them having that same smile be replaced with a bloody and sunken face on the news every night. He eventually came back and David explained to us how family extends farther than blood. The man captured is okay now, and David had gotten past it all. He showed us a Netflix series called Captive which had his father figure feature on episode 8 of season 1. This was a night of sharing. Of opening up to each other. David and Anthony each showed me how they became the person they are today. So I wanted to show them what made me who I am. It was a poetry piece by a man named Steve Koyczan. It was called To This Day. The message was pretty much an elongated "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me". But the way it was presented hit me hard. Not just the video, but in the words he used. How he portrayed that kids will always be kids but words will always hurt and carry on through our lives. Koyczan's use od cacophony and juxapedia really took it home for me. The disgusting sounding words hit my heart like when I was bullied for being bigger. And this was my showing them my roots of poetry. Content creation. I became vulnerable for them. I told them the story of my bipolar friend. He stopped taking his pills but the good days seldom came back. He never took his pills again, but he took his life. He taught me to enjoy my happy days and love my friends. So I bared my heart to them. I told them that being bullied as a kid didn't bother me until it all caught up to me. I told them that I tried killing myself because I didn't want to be around anymore. I told them that even to this day, I still think of dying. Of how easy it was to go to the rooftop pool and just jump. Or take a scenic route down the observation deck. I told them that I was really grateful for them having me in their friend circle and how even being able to go to Vegas with them was a gift. So here we are. In the shittiest hotel in Las Vegas sitting in a room. Just us three guys sharing. Opening up and showing our vulnerabilities to each other. Crying. Listening to music. Letting our worries go. But it was silent. Not awkward, we were just taking it all in. David broke the silence. He knew what Anthony and I go through regardless of how long he's known us. He told us that he feels no malicious intent in our body. That we were friends because he wants us to be around. He reassured us that he sees us as good people. People who deserve to be happy. That we weren't weak to ever think about suicide. But that we were stronger to still be here. And that he was glad to have us in his life. He reassured me that letting me into their friend circle was nothing to be grateful for. We are all in it for each other. That we're all friends because we care for each other. Wow, that was some strong Bacardi. Joking aside, the night continued on a brighter note. Now, how was this so life changing? This wasn't a movie. We didn't go out on the strip and drop bills. We didn't get piss drunk, wake up with a hangover with a friend missing. Mike Tyson's tiger was not in our washroom and the only money spent was on bottles to drink. No, this was real. Saturday night and we spent it inside talking. Anthony said that Las Vegas just sucked the soul out of everyone here. How everyone fell to sin in this city. But we didn't. You can call us squares or lames but I realized on that night how real of friends these two are. That we didn't need to go out to have a good time. We spent the night talking to each other and taking care of our spiritual happiness and not our material happiness. All the stress and worries were gone in those short few hours. In the City of Sin, we overcame and became better people. Happier people Just a story of how important it is to have these kind people in your life. They don't come often, so treasure them. But hey, don't get me wrong. Next time I head to Vegas, I'm balling out.