My fiancée and I have recently returned from a spectacular weekend spent with a recently transplanted buddy in Phoenix. It was my first visit to the land of John McCain, NBA Jam era Barclay, and leathery retirees so sick of people that they handily eschew Florida, where their grandchildren are more likely to visit. I am pleased to report the sprawling urban experiment, made of stubborn desert landscaping and held together with the glue of moral fortitude, still stands. I ‘report’ this because, if the spin mills are to be believed, that particular section of the Sonoran Desert has gone all Fertile Crescent with violent crime, kidnapping, and unabashedly brown births being carried out on any given street corner. Arizona lies on the front line of an invasion, and every day its people feel the burden that Obama refuses to shoulder. Indeed, what is it about the world’s deserts that American Presidents can’t seem to keep healthy of biblical crises? We exist in a nation divided, and a disproportionate length of fault line lies in the jurisdiction of an immigration law designed for a place that, if we are truly honest with ourselves, we have never even visited. In the internet age, it is easy to forget just how immense our country is, and just how misplaced outrage can get when dramatically different ways of life are happening a couple hundred miles away.

If the concern over SB 1070 is that all Arizonans – not just the differently colored ones – are at risk of a domino effect, stripping the state’s residents of their humanity and civil liberties – - if that is the concern, we can send that worry the way of the Native American infestation: those blankets have already been distributed. Judging by the shifting, terrified eyes of the average citizen of Phoenix, you would think they were all hiding an extended family of opera singing Jews under their floorboards. Paranoia is such a way of life down there, Howard Hughes could be mayor by virtue of being the calmest, sanest sonofabitch in residence. In the short span of our visit, we witnessed a Big Brother system so intricately conceived that any smiling neighbor could double as informant against you if you made the mistake of having any fun in their viscinity.

The bitch of it is, the city is not overrun by crime, by any standard. Aware of the region’s purported woes, I kept my eyes open, and saw no corner drug deals, no bullet holes in brick buildings, not even a person that drove faster than 5mph below the speed limit. No evidence of criminal enterprise either, like graffiti or so much as a foreboding dark alley. As my friend Dan, who moved to Scottsdale two months ago, explained it, doors to cars and homes were generally left unlocked, as the punishment for a crime as odious but innocuous as breaking and entering could easily be death by the guy who could legally blow a hole in you with his shot gun. Everywhere, the people have been scared into enforcing the laws of the land, for fear the hammer will fall upon them.

Crossing the Hoover Dam and braving the treacherous mountain passes (we learned on the return trip you could avoid those by taking the Laughlin route off the 93) necessitated we arrive in Scottsdale past midnight on Friday, so it was determined that the party should commence directly, lest we waste more time. Dan took us to a glorious dive bar he frequents, the fabled crumbling slice of Americana with tabletop shuffleboard, toilets last cleaned in ’86, and an ancient Big Game Hunter video cabinet comprising the majority of the furniture. It was perfect. Pitchers were cheap, the jukebox was only mostly country, and we were well into the swing of a southwestern night of quiet debauchery when the box-dyed, 45 going on 70 bartender ruined the evening by declaring the bar closed.

When I informed the woman I was nowhere near the level of inebriation I had hoped for, and requested perhaps one more beer, her eyes widened with the naked fear of converses during the Spanish Inquisition. “Get out, get out!” she cried, I shit you not, good reader. We left then, not inclined to witness just how close we came to seeing a middle aged woman crap her pants. We decided, instead, to procure a case of Bud at the Circle K and continue our shenanigans at home, out of eye- and earshot of the local Gestapo.

As it turns out, one cannot buy alcoholic beverages anywhere in the state after 2 am. The sole employee, a meek young woman behind the counter, told us as much, with an expression on her face that suggested, after thirty-some-odd years of Swayze warning us not to, we had put Baby in the corner. And then shot Baby in the head. We pleaded with her. We cajoled, reasoned, flirted, threatened, invited her to share in the imbibing. We spent thirty minutes attempting to get a case of beer out the door by any means short of stealing the thing. “The best that can happen is that I will lose my job,” she assured us, and we found ourselves exiting a second establishment quietly, not wanting to experience the worst-case scenario first-hand. For the first time since we were 16, we went to bed sober, reading our respective books, in a situation that we did not want to.

Saturday night, by the magnanimity of Dan, we attended a preseason Cardinals game. The University of Phoenix Stadium (that degree has to be worth a bag of M&Ms) consists of the stadium itself, and a kind of outdoor mall with restaurants and retail to enjoy. Tailgating was announced every ten seconds as illegal by Korean DMZ bullhorn, but consumption was benevolently permitted in the many overpriced establishments in the mall, like Margaritaville and Yardhouse. A sea of maroon Cards jerseys were visible outside of each, overcrowded breadlines of Arizonans so unused to being allowed to have a modicum of fun they don’t even know what an amusement park speed pass is. We managed to snag a few before giving up, and heading to the Sketchers store where we all bought Shape-ups, which turn out to be the greatest shoes you will ever wear, and yet still a poor substitute for drunk.

The game itself was incredible. Houston (Dani remarked that the Texas Texans would be a better name, if they were going to go the retarded route anyway) had our boys over the knee, until the fourth quarter, when the Cards decided to play and stomp those bastards into the turf and win. However, there were more advertisements for how to report your rowdy row-mate than for Matt Leinart Visa cards, and the ubiquitous police officers on the field seemed less like security than official mascots. Outside and afterward, a pervading voice reminded us that breathing required an official state license.

Bricka-bracka, firecracker, shish-boom - - HEY, stop that smiling.

We made haste to what would turn out to be the finest titty bar I have ever had the pleasure to patronize. With the highest collection of nines and tens per capita in the United States, the near-perfect female to male ratio should find Scottsdale, as a city, at the top of the list of exclusive nightclubs. Combine that with inexpensive drinks, and an atmosphere thick with shame and anus sweat, and entering the Bourbon Street adult club was like a homecoming for this lecherous reporter. That was until 1:30, when they roll up the nipples like the real Bourbon Street after a rainstorm. That’s right, no topless in a strip club after John McCain takes his NyQuil. I considered taking a girl into the shadowed benches for a dance, but remembered the poor, set upon girl at the Circle K the previous evening, and decided to show the same kind of mercy one shows to the one homeless man a year you’re morally required to begrudgingly throw your loose change at, and decided against it. You’re welcome, Chancey.

Driving home, I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the first adult novelty store and arcade on the side of the highway, as it meant we had passed safely back into Nevada. Still, I ruminated on those people that did not have the luxury of calling a non-fascist state home. Granted, I have lived in various cities surrounding New York, Boston, and Las Vegas, where licking whiskey off of hired nipples is best done after sunrise. But I have had the luxury of exploring most of the states in this great union, and my constitution would handle more time with the back-woods, overall-clad, gas station lounging residents of West Virginia than the shitless Arizonans I encountered over my admittedly brief stay. The poor bastards don’t even have time to suspect there’s more, but that fuse is going to burn down, and I certainly don’t want to be around when the powder keg of repressed humanity goes off.

On the other hand, given all of this, isn’t the less-than-new Arizona immigration law we’re still yelling into our blogs about just par for the course? Given that not being able to procure a forty after 2 am is a way of life down there, isn’t it reasonable for the citizens to allow being brown to be illegal? McCain’s claims of the high rates of kidnapping and violent crimes in Phoenix were discredited, not just by this intrepid party-goer, but by many sources. Then again, seeing a woman naked after 1:30 isn’t going to result in another 9/11, but for some reason, the revolution has not exactly taken to the streets over this repression.

Hey, maybe the reason is that Arizonans are masochists. Raised under the blistering sun to work in drab cubicles, trained to condescendingly enjoy pink and green faux-Native American house décor and cacti instead of real plants, their pools roughly at boiling temperature in April, watching their beloved Cardinals bite it year after year… they must like this! When they heard that any one of them could be frisked, searched, cuffed, roughed, and verbally abused by cops obliged to forgo their American scruples to keep their jobs, they must have collectively creamed their pants. The state is just one big coliseum, where everybody suffers and nobody wins, and the governor has her thumb pointed left for just one more stable of victims. If you had grown up under this regime, and suddenly the tweeds from two-thousand miles away are birthing kittens over just the latest batch, you’re damned right you’d be indignant. Let the wetbacks suffer like the rest of us, and maybe if we get a decent tan this August, we can be part of the fun too. But make sure you get it done by two, I don’t know if I can face it sober.

(As a post-script, It’s important to point out you can have fun in Phoenix, and against all odds, Dan, Dani, and I had more than our share. It requires a little planning, like stocking your fridge early on, and developing activities not based around drinking. It was an alien concept, but we managed beautifully.)