July

[Sweder]

No running here Bubba; it's just too darned hot.
And no more treadies for Freddy; I'm all done with the hamster wheel.

My estimate of 100 degrees before 10:30 was a tad off. The giant thermometer - possibly the dullest 'tourist attraction' since tumbleweed - just past Baker showed 96 degrees at a few minutes after nine in the a.m. By noon we were way beyond 120.

Danny Boyle's Sunshine contains a scene where one of the characters exposes himself to massive amounts of extreme sunlight. The result, enhanced by some fine cinematography, is a shimmering, disorienting, dancing blur that screws mercilessly with your senses - pretty much what I felt when I stepped out of my car at the Hard Rock hotel. It was like being punched in the guts; all the air left my lungs in a heartbeat. I felt certain my skin would simply slide off my bones to form a molten puddle on the semi-soft tarmac. I left a banana in the car - thirty minutes later I returned to the vehicle to find the fruit blackened and piping hot.

I lucked out at the Hard Rock. Just the right side of the Fourth of July Weekend, the much-lauded celebration of kicking British backsides (with the help of the French), I picked up a room for a modest $99 for the night. At the admissions desk, with 'Love In An Elevator' competing with the constant 'ching-ching-ching' of the ubiquitous slots, the lovely young lady announced that I'd be getting a suite at no extra charge. I thanked her but nowhere near enough; this network of rooms is huge. I have a lounge, replete with silver leather sofa, lounge chairs, coffee table, giant flat-screen TV (with state-of-the-art multi-media centre), chinese puzzle-pattern carpet and desk, a kitchen with bar, refridgerator and dishwasher. The bedroom, equal in size to the lounge, houses a monster of a bed, laden with huge pillows and billowing duvet, flanked by twin wall-mounted lanterns, a plumbed-in i-pod station and framed by a black velvet headboard. On the wall another flat-screen telly and a framed shot of Jim Morrison, back to the camera, saluting a stadium full of screaming hippies.

The view from my seventh floor window is of a collection of pools, inter-connected by man-made streams, bridges and waterslides, speckled with palm trees and, at time of arrival, playground for around a hundred bodies beautiful chugging beer and daquiries from foam-wrapped coolers. Not for me this life of decadence; I've work to do.

My insistance on wearing a business suit to meetings here has attracted curiosity expressed in a way similar to kids studying monkeys playing with themselves at the zoo. Heads tilt, mouths gape and brows furrow. I counter the looks of surprise and alarm by explaining that I'm British and could no more turn up in shorts and sandals than I could flap my arms and fly.

I'm out of this mad hellhole in a few short hours. My internal clock is completely mullered; an errant call (from Belgium) to my mobile at 1:45 this morning has me wide awake, watching 'Poker After Dark' (still don't get it) on the TV whilst writing this. Four-day trips to the Western Seaboard are a short-cut to madness and insomnia. Bewl should be a hoot.