(That is a picture of Elvis on his shirt. He wants there to be no doubt: He is Vain Elvis.)

Where? Ellis Island, the premiere locals casino of Las Vegas. The playing floor is roughly the size of your living room. The dealers are ornery and underfed. The steaks in the restaurant are still four bucks and loaded with more salt than Shamu’s twat, the price and the product both survivors from 1970. A thin haze of cigarette smoke and regret hangs over the whole establishment like a ghost from A Christmas Carol 2: La Vida Perdio. Still the unassuming lounge in the back is packed to capacity nightly, because of a little equalizer they call “karaoke,” and a short menu of microbrews that put the national standard to shame.

Who’s This Scumbag? The last of the great Elvis impersonators, I guess. Vegas has eschewed all that goofy Elvis and mafia crap years ago, instead favoring the classier Paris Hilton disease exchange pool party at Wet Republic, or Zowie Bowie’s “I Always Thought He Was a Chick Bash.” But this scumbag has hung desperately from the dream like a 65 year-old motivational kitten, dutifully glopping on the pompadour and five-dollar Fremont gift shop sunglasses (not to mention a sweat-shirt with a screening of the king, an homage to early-90s drugstore Halloween costumes, I imagine) day in and day out, though literally nobody has asked him to do it. He certainly isn’t paid to do it, except in condescending smiles, because here’s the best part: he has never even heard an Elvis Presley song in his life. I swear to Christ, we have been hanging at the Ellis Island karaoke lounge for well over a year, and whether its Thirsty Thursday or Mind Your Business Monday, this guy is never not there, going all Saw IV over one or another of Presley’s beloved rockabilly standards. Sick days are literally for pussies, if this guy sets any kind of example.

More interested in performing some kind of mechanical, cyborg version of the King’s patented hip thrusts, arm jabs, and skull seizures (I don’t know, that might be an original, I never got to ask him), this guy totally forgot to listen to any of Elvis’ music. I am also convinced he does not get the idea of karaoke, at all. The words are on the screen, dude, and the rhythm is semi-denoted by the changing of the colored words. It’s a tough concept, but it should be enough to keep you from racing full tilt through your 320th rendition of “Jailhouse Rock” at 3x the appropriate speed, and maybe help you remember a few of the words. If you suck at karaoke, we at SBS do not judge. That’s the culture of entertaining mockery the Japanese built into their wonderfully cruel national pastime. If you suck at karaoke after singing the same four songs every day for over a year, you make the scumbag wall. Congrats, bro.

Above, irrefutable evidence that people actually watch Tyler Perry.

People don’t watch Tyler Perry’s brand of chocolate milk-and-water bunkum, you say. Studios just keep producing his “films” and television programs because Perry keeps laying out scripts, they’re cheap to make, and nobody watches TBS before 11PM (or after 12, unless they want Lopez to not-funny them to sleep). They produce them because there’s this vague idea that’s captured our cultural subconscious that it is somehow racist not to, you say. At least its not “One On One” or “Homeboys In Outerspace,” or whatever that hysterically racist program was called. Black people don’t go into space, dude, for the same reason they don’t jump out of planes. They’re too smart to do that shit. You ever see a black family on a roller coaster? They’re freaking the fuck out because they are far more aware of their mortality than peroxide-haired thrill seekers.

Anyway, you’d be wrong. About people not watching Tyler Perry. Black people actually eat that shit up, like its made entirely of deep womb orgasms and Maury Povich baby daddy reveals. As Samuel Chapman, third of his aristocratic name, attempts to point out above, this is without question entertainment not made for my pale ass. Black people feel a need to support things made just for them, and I get that. It’s why they unflappably support Obama, no matter how he personally screws the city they are living in, and puts their individual jobs in danger. On the surface, it is a solidarity thing.

On the other hand, I do speak English, and I do follow the more interesting aspects of black culture, and I am definitely positive Tyler Perry is not funny. Most of it is retreads of relationship bullshit that was covered in mainstream, non-race biased media thirty years ago, and wasn’t even really comedically relevant then. Look at the title of one of Perry’s more successful franchises: Why Did I Get Married? Yes, you’ve identified the underlying conflict of 4,859 films since they invented talkies. What makes me want to watch your “unhappily married until I learn a lesson” movie over any other? That’s rhetorical, you and I both know there’s no reason. The sequel was called Why Did I Get Married, Too. ‘Nuff said.

Mrs. Doubtfire is absolutely the last time a grown man was able to dress as an old woman and get a single laugh from the discerning connoisseur of drollery; not because Robin Williams is white (though his being funnier than Martin Lawrence and Perry didn’t hurt), but because its done! It’s over. Frankly, you don’t get to do drag after Monty Python and Kids In The Hall and Whitest Kids U Know (I swear that’s a coincidence) unless it is a kids’ movie, because you will undoubtedly fail. I’ll bet you real money Tyler Perry knew that before he put on the rubber tits. Which brings me to my point…

But is it really a solidarity thing? Or are black people being sold repackaged separate-but-equal. I mean, we’ve objectively proven Tyler Perry isn’t funny (as if we had to). And it is not like Black Culture is hurting for representation in the mainstream. Hip-Hop is (deservedly) the most popular genre of music in the Western World. I don’t know a single person that isn’t looking forward to Bad Boys III. Hell, black people have Republicans. Republicans! Racism ain’t dead, we all need to realize that, but we’ve also seen black people can give it (and here and here*) as well as they get it. And keeping that in mind, is there need to show solidarity with, or spend all your money on, something distinctly of “your” race to the exclusion of objectively better media? Tyler Perry is the way to fight racism like the Easy Deep Fry Oven is the holiday gift sensation to stop childhood obesity.

What it really is, friends, is a way to make money off of something we as an integrated group decided was toxic two or three generations ago. Trust me, as tempting as it would be, white folks wouldn’t drink from a different water fountain simply because it was in the shape of the Starship Enterprise or Christopher Guest’s dick or whatever. Even if it promised to spout a microbrew or single malt scotch. Because it’s just wrong.

*For the record, Scumbag Style’s official stance has always been that white people are indeed the problem with the world. We’d just like to not be exterminated, please. Maybe a nice camp, or a tasteful chalet where we might grow things and share them with you.

When one witnesses an event that can be described as out of the ordinary, one can usually deduce the series of events that led these people to arrive at the given situation. This is a law for which Las Vegas often seems like a black hole. With cultures from around the globe centralized in a booze addled, no-rules party town, one can see a strange situation every day, if one looks hard enough. And the continually entertaining and baffling thing is, you cannot always figure out what happened. How can one be certain one knows their environment enough when there are things happening in the background that one is not only not aware of, but incapable of comprehending? Case in point: a traffic event my coworkers and I witnessed on our way to lunch this afternoon. You will want to sit down for this.

On Fort Apache, headed toward Charleston, the General Lee passed us going in the opposite direction. That’s right, a bright orange 1969 Charger with the familiar 01 racing number emblazoned on the side, speeding down Fort Apache. This is not a strange incident in itself: what with the prevalence of rednecks in this town, fandom is guaranteed to rear its toothless head from time to time. No, what was strange about this situation was that two undercover police SUVs were doing their best to chase the General Lee down, and failing. It was a (relatively) high speed chase, the closest one I have ever been to that I was not personally involved in.

It was much bigger than this, but no less adorable.

Now, the jokes and jibes abound when applied to this situation. Freeze frame, enter Waylon Jennings: Now them Hazard boys ain’t much for gambling, but they were about to play some high rpm roulette with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Smokeys. Boss Hogg is going to be so pissed, he’s going to take a huge dump all over Uncle Jesse’s still, if’n he can find it. But we’re not here to make jokes, we are here to solve a mystery, worthy of a Dukes and Scooby-Doo crossover. And if it’s possible we’re going to get Jackie Gleason on this one too, having played the finest lawman in cinema history. The mystery of what the hell was going on up Fort Apache way has several possible answers, all of which are probably wrong. Let’s examine a few…

One explanation is that my coworkers and I were unwitting participants in the most reckless and illegal historical reenactment of all time. Was this performance art? We are in Vegas after all. Perhaps the best and brightest of Clark County have finally given up the Civil War ghost and have resorted to reenacting something with more historical accuracy. And if you want to say that The Dukes of Hazard is a fictional situation comedy, don’t say it too loud around them that take everything that comes out of the shiny box as fact.

Another, much more exciting, thought occurs. Perhaps that was the real, honest to goodness General Lee. Perhaps, just perhaps, Seann William Scott and Johnny Knoxville were hootin’ and hollerin’ in the bucket seats. And maybe, if we left some milk and cookies out for him, Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane (the finest cop moniker in modern fictional history) is in that modernized SUV, charging enthusiastically toward his own embarrassing failure at 85 miles an hour. This scenario is the grown man equivalent of finding out Jessica Rabbit, Han Solo, and the Incredible Hulk were real people (we would like those things, too). Can you imagine the age of innocence that would ensue, as men across the country started believing, not only in the world of elves and cookie trees, but in their own aspirations and self worth. I see a world of old men, rocking on the porch with huge toothless grins on their faces, saying, “Paw said I could be president one day!” Younger men would believe that Santa Claus actually bought him that new power drill, and not his young wife. The inspiring nature of this theory demands that it be left in consideration.

My favorite theory thus far has been that the man behind the wheel of the General Lee has just found out

... also, this.

he has about a week to live. If he is going to go, he is going to go in the coolest way possible for a redneck. So he hocked his trailer for a paint job, slapped on a pair of Daisy Dukes (he’s always wanted to do that), got some decals mail order from that there internets, hijacked a case of Ball jars full of hooch, and took to the streets. He led the LVMP on a thrilling chase through the backwoods of… Clark County suburbia… making his final experiences the best of his life. Not only that, but he was good at it. Smokey had next to no chance of catching this guy at the speeds they were going. A bright orange Charger with one of the universal symbols of racism on it is not exactly inconspicuous, which may have proved a drawback for anyone not entirely devoted to the historical accuracy of his balls-deep, batshit crazy escapade, but not for this pioneer of deathsploits.

I cannot actually say what happened to this god among men and his charmingly bemused pursuers. I wanted to follow, but a u-turn in the middle of the road and picking up that much speed seemed like a terrible idea when attempting to be as close to cops or their quarry as possible. Also, we may never know what heinous, otherworldly, logic defying events led to the 70’s television show inspired car chase. All we have, my dear readers, is that one moment in time, and if we are smart we will be grateful for even that. Knowing all the facts can only demystify us from our own more exciting fantasies. For years you will believe that bootlegging is alive and well, and being executed by the finest men for the job. For years you will believe that Daisy Dukes really can be filled out that well in real life. For years you will believe – believe – that seconds after I passed the most notorious criminal Las Vegas event since Tupac, time around the General Lee stopped, and Waylon Jennings told everybody in the audience something entirely evident, in the most clever way any man ever could.

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.)