Devastated (Again).

The disaster in Vegas on Sunday night has me so heartbroken.

I've come to think of Vegas as a home away from home, and this incident has shaken me like very few events in my life have. I'm not a Vegas resident but this feels like a knife being driven into me, even if it's from a distance.

This isn't about me. Literally hundreds of innocent people have died or been injured by this thing, and how this affects some washed up old fuck living in San Francisco is pretty irrelevant. But all experience is relative, and we all process things as they relate to ourselves. So here goes.

My first thought is just sadness for the attendees. I'm no great lover of country "music", but this could just as well have been any other venue and type of show. Apparently Paddock had rented space above where the Life is Beautiful show took place the week before, so the type of music seems to have been irrelevant.

These people were out on a lovely night in one of the great entertainment cities on the planet enjoying the music and performers they loved. That should be something sacred in this world, that you should feel safe doing or seeing something you love. The list of victims reads like a map of the continent, and instead of a great experience in a great city they got death and terror. No one deserves that.

My second thought is how horrible this is for Las Vegas. Vegas, or at least the strip, is the ultimate "fun" and escape town. This is where you go to get away from the mundane workaday life, to blow off steam and see and do things you can't do in Paducah or Sioux Falls. It's the crazy but safe place to let your hair or other dangly bits down. The LAST thing you think could happen is something like this. That one guy, for whatever reason, could do this and put a dent in this great town's reputation at least in the near term is awful.

Vegas will bounce back...the strip is open for business, all the shows and entertainment and fun will return but there will now and always be that little voice in the back of people's heads: October 1st, 2017. Today what you think of when you hear the word Vegas is not fun and release but death and horror. Hopefully not for long.

What WILL take a permanent hit, now and always, is Mandalay Bay. Just like Columbine or Sandy Hook, Mandalay Bay will forever be etched in the minds of people everywhere as "the place where THAT happened". By no means is that MB's fault and it's not the remotest bit fair, but that's how it will be. MB is a great resort and I spend time there on nearly every trip, it's one of the best resorts on the strip and it doesn't deserve what happened either. MB relies on a lot of convention business since it's so far south on the strip...how many events are going to book MB in the near term when what happened will be associated with it? Hopefully the impact will be minimal, but there will be an impact.

How security procedures play out in the future on the strip and in general, it's too early to say. You have to hope that an incident like this won't turn one of the most open, free cities in the US to have to lock down into metal detectors and TSA like security lines. That would be the added tragedy on top of the actual one.

Bad stuff happens, the world keeps turning, and eventually this will fade into a history book lesson for future students, but right now it just feels awful and heinous and like a part of me has been ripped out. Hopefully the recovery of all parties involved and especially those directly affected will be as swift as possible.

Love ya Vegas, see you soon.