Regular readers please reset your bookmarks and RSS feeds to Bat Country: Adventures in a Broken-Down Carny Town. We are still under construction but we are open for visitors. Thank you for your kind patronage at Carver’s Dog but it’s time to move on.

I am deeply shocked and saddened to learn that two friends of ours, Paul Stephens, 26, and Brian Hudson, 25, were shot to death in their Las Vegas apartment on June 8 during a robbery. Three suspects have been apprehended by Metro police. We’re going to be quiet here for a day or so while we collect our thoughts and emotions.

RIP, Paul and Brian.

Goddamnit.

This then will sadly serve as our 364th and final posting at Carver’s Dog. Comments here and elsewhere on the blog will be responded to but there will be no new postings. We will emerge at a new blog in the next 24 hours and that will be announced in the body of this posting.

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The city’s frightening now. That’s the basis of my reaction to Las Vegas. It’s not the city I wrote about. It’s not the same place at all.

Hunter S. Thompson, 2002

After 563 posts in 30 categories and 4,504 comments since December 2007, we are ready to park Carver’s Dog at the curb next to our other old online stomping ground, 8763 Wonderland. Over the next week or so we will be taking a look back at some of our favorite Dog droppings while we figure out where we’re going next and what interests us. We’re up for suggestions as to a new direction and new name. I’m not interested in creating a blog that’s nothing more than a news aggregator — God knows there’s enough of those in the blogosphere. I have a digital camera that I have never set up, let alone put into practical use, so there may be something to explore there.

The themes and preoccupations at Wonderland were pretty easy to break down: Los Angeles and its criminal element, insights into L.A.’s porn trade, and, of course, the adventures of my alter ego, Trace. Wonderland was so successful we wound up on the syllabus of a University of Maryland English course titled Literature in a Wired World, taught by Jess Henig. That was a moment I remain intensely proud of. But when I left L.A. in ‘06 there didn’t seem much sense in carrying on with Wonderland; when we moved to Las Vegas in late ‘07 I resumed my online presence here, dominated early on by loads of short and flash fiction, literary news and discussion, remembrances of L.A., and my sometimes incessant whining and complaining. For the latter I apologize. (No, that does not mean I’m going to cease bitching and complaining. Dream on.)

And now, my all-time favorite post here at Carver’s Dog, Ghosts of Las Vegas from December 3, 2008.

The car suddenly veered off the road and we came to a sliding halt in the gravel. I was hurled against the dashboard. My attorney was slumped over the wheel. “What’s wrong?” I yelled. “We can’t stop here. This is bat country!”

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

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Joseph Mailander is closing shop … again. At least Street Hassle, which he is keeping online for another three weeks before electronic euthanization, lasted longer than Kafka’s Mouse.

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Harper’s Magazine is hassling me for a subscription renewal six months before my current subscription lapses. First came a request by mail; observe the oddly personal tone the form letter from editor Roger D. Hodge takes in the second graph:

Having read quite a few of your complaints on the subject, I’m not unmindful of the notion that the magazine might be running some sort of scam. The suspicion is unfounded. Any money earned as interest on early payments dwindles to a pittance by comparison with the money spent for paper and postage on the mailing of the additional renewal notices.

I never complained to anyone, Rog. Honestly. I swear to God. But I want back the forty minutes of my life it took to read that horrible posthumous Vonnegut short story you ran in last month’s issue.

Next came an e-mail:

Dear RODGER JACOBS:

Although your subscription doesn’t expire for another six months there are several benefits to renewing early:

You won’t receive another annoying renewal notice again this year.
You can avoid subscription price increases for up to two years. 
You will have the peace of mind of knowing that you won’t miss one single issue.

Okay, avoiding price increases is an appeal to logic but threatening additional “annoying” renewal notices and inferring that I will ascend to some zen-like level of inner peace upon renewing is just ludicrous.

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One day the Master announced that a young monk had reached an advanced state of enlightment. The news caused some stir. Some of the monks went to see the young monk. “We heard you are enlightened. Is that true?” they asked.

“It is,” he replied.

“And how do you feel?”

“As miserable as ever,” said the monk.

When you bring an act into this town, you want to bring it heavy. Don’t waste any time with cheap shucks and misdemeanors. Go straight for the jugular. Get right into felonies.

Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Thanks to the tanking economy and a ridiculous base rent all across Southern California of $900.00 for a one-bedroom broom closet with a view of an alleyway festooned with gang graffiti and coyote feces, we have opted to renew the lease on our Summerlin apartment for another year. We don’t mind the safe and clean community that was developed by the Howard Hughes Corporation but the city of Las Vegas itself, taken as a whole … well, let me put it to you this way: the next time some wanna-be hip cynic tries to tell you that Los Angeles is Hell just ask that person if they’ve ever spent any substantive time in the city that mystery novelist Ross MacDonald called L.A.’s most far-flung suburb.

After eliminating a return to Los Angeles when our lease expires on June 30, we briefly considered Arizona (thanks to Vaughn Croteau for his wise counsel in that area) and Northern California. Both options were out of the question after further exploration. So then we thought, “Well, what if we can find something more affordable in the Las Vegas area?”

Siegel Suites and Budget Suites — residential hotel chains essentially — looked good for a spell. We’re talking rent in the $600.00 to $800.00 a month range, free cable and wireless internet, free utilities, restaurant on premises. Of course it would’ve required a move to the inner city, closer to the Strip. But then I drilled down on Siegel and Budget through various online review sites and this was pretty much the unanimous verdict, as posted by a reviewer at Travel Post:

Stayed at the Cambridge location…drug dealers everywhere…gang members everywhere…crack whores everywhere…and even worse…the guy they have maintaing the place…his name is Russell Hill….borrows money from tentants and doesnt pay them back and does this to maintain his drug habits and support his crack whores….stay away from this place it is only for low lifes and losers….

Another dissatisfied lodger wrote that the suites were ideal “if you’re a pimp, whore, or drug dealer” but not so good “if you’re on the run from law enforcement” because Metro Police are frequent middle of the night visitors, often with guns drawn.

I’m not going to make any moral judgments here. I mean, vice is what drives the economy in Las Vegas, right? You have to give the pimps, whores, and drug dealers a place to crash. And now we know where they live should we ever be interested in having such colorful characters as neighbors.

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 This is not a good town for psychedelic drugs. Reality itself is too twisted.

Hunter S. Thompson

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Did you know that Las Vegas leads the nation in child prostitution? It’s true. They’ve been telling us all about it on the local TV news of late. The city is embarrassed by it so they want to get the word out: No sex with underage vixens in our city, buster. From Las Vegas Now:

Governor Jim Gibbons signed into law a bill strengthening the ability of law enforcement going after pimps of child prostitutes.

The new law will allow a District Attorney to seize any and all assets from the convicted pimp.

<snip>

Authorities hope the new bill will cut down on the number of child prostitutes recruited by pimps in Las Vegas. Metro Police say roughly 400 children are picked off the streets from prostitution each year. Former prostitutes say the number of children is much higher and pimps much are more devious.

If child abuse in all its various shapes and forms makes your skin crawl, steer your wagon away from Las Vegas, O Pioneer. Some days the top three or four stories in the local news are about child murder or child abuse:

The man wanted in connection with the death of a little girl is now in police custody.

Emanual Dodson surrendered to police Friday. He is being charged with murder after police say he killed a 2-year-old girl.

She was found dead by her mother on Sunday.

That was from last Friday’s news but there’s a fresh one almost every day. Here’s another tidbit from Friday’s local news:

Metro Police have busted a major shoplifting ring and seized nearly $100,000 worth of stolen goods and you might be surprised to find out what those goods were.

Police found more than 2,000 bottles of shampoo, 300 rolls of toilet paper, 447 deodorant sticks, 150 tequila bottles and 120 cans of baby formula.

Well, well, looks like somebody was trying to corner the market on vital supplies for the average Las Vegan because here in Southern Nevada everyone has perfectly coiffed hair, their assholes and underams don’t stink, they’re perpetually plastered, and the only nourishment they can keep down is fucking baby formula. Check this out from Monday’s headlines:

Police say a 25-year-old man faces felony drunken driving and child neglect charges after a crash that left a 10-year-old boy critically hurt Sunday night in northwest Las Vegas.

Police say an SUV driven by 25-year-old Juan Esteves-Villegas was involved in two hit-and-run crashes before it plowed through a block wall about 7:30 a.m. into the back yard of a home on Michael Way and Seattle Slew Drive.

Police say the boy was not wearing a seatbelt.

See? You didn’t believe me about the perpetually plastered thing, did you? And look what just came in over the wire as I was searching for the last news bite for you:

A North Las Vegas mother is behind bars after being accused of sticking her child’s hands in scalding hot water.

The 18-month-old child had second and third-degree burns on both of her hands. Shantell Morris is charged with child abuse with substantial bodily harm.

According to the arrest report, Morris told officers that her daughter put her hands in the toilet bowl and she was attempting to clean them when the water got too hot.

Morris has been investigated by Child Protective Services in the past and had only recently gotten custody of her three children.

L.A. — you got nothin’ on Vegas, baby. We are the dark underside.

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No mercy for a criminal freak in Las Vegas. This place is like the army: the shark ethic prevails-eat the wounded. In a closed society where everybody’s guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.

Hunter S. Thompson