Las Vegas is 100 degrees, at night. It’s a heat lamp. The air is a parka. Breeze is fleece. Breathing means sweat. Sweating as in balls. Hydration is key. Beer dehydrates, especially 24oz PBR.

I lost my wallet. Unpacked the entire van looking for it. Even looked where the spare tire was. And my kick pedal case. Somehow it could have ended up there. Searched the club twice with a flashlight. Total complete loser, “Yeah, I just played, have you seen my wallet?” You know how you retrace your steps? I had it down to the exact spot where I had seen it last. Not there. They had it in the entire time in the office.

Beauty Bar is old Vegas and is part of a solid uprising of venues for touring bands. ATTENTION BANDS: Contact James at MetaMeta Productions for getting shows in Las Vegas. He will work with you, and for you, in order to make a good show happen. We played with Hawnay Troof. It’s the one man band of Vice Cooler. He’s a machine of dance moves and crowd stirring. He went down hard to the ground in a move and hurt his dick.

James the promoter is a smooth, happy motherfucker. He’s also a philosophy professor at UNLV. We know him from shows in New Haven where he taught at Yale. Now he’s in Las Vegas, teaching classes such as The Theory of Truth, and booking shows.

We went for a stroll through the casinos. There were three Elvises, two Jim Morrisons, and an exact Rod Stewart.

The theory of casino truth is that the chain smoking seventy-five year olds have grown umbilical chords right into the slots. They hook into catheters and gamble in hopes of jackpot sex. No getting up to go, for days. Just gambling. Tar and gin gimlets steady on the intake. You can hear the tar, filling lungs, like the Blob slurping its way across town. Suffocating alveoli. These elder Las Vegas lungs want to win. Stale emphysema faces stare. Lungs and livers, now just puddy. Lungs and livers whimpering at the same low, microscopic volume rose petals whimper at when their pedals are plucked.

The zombie gamblers don’t need nutrients. They just need the chance to win. Hit me. Defibrillation. Three cherries across the top – You Win. Holy Grail.

Ralph the Ralphing Everclear Otter Pop, Chubicabra, Russian Roulette, and All Ages Fun.

The Mormon presence shadows Salt Lake City with a stiff foreboding religious haze. There’s a quiet there. It’s not all choirs and polygamy though. There’s a music scene, and an adult novelty store with no windows called 'Mischievous'. The ad for Mischievous has a young stud of a blonde haired man having his ass shaved that reads “Expand Your Toy Collection.” So Salt Lake has caught up to the times. There’s the Mormon Tabernacle and now there are quarter mile long party-dildos for sale called the Deep Star Rex.

Salt Lake City streets are extremely easy to navigate and the Mexican food is delecticious. Alberto’s is the absolute shit.

For music venues, there’s an all ages compound called Kilby Court. Down its own dusty piece of road, there are practice rooms, art spaces, the show room, and a patio with well watered foliage and a fire pit. Foals play Kilby soon. Kilby is an all ages Mecca. There’s a ghost there they call the Green Man. It’s the ghost of a Chinese guy who shot himself in the head while playing Russian Roulette. A casket sits outside in the back of one of the Kilby buildings. No word on whether it’s the Green Man’s or not.

Another place to play is the 21 and over Urban Lounge. GZA, Greyskul, Silver Jews, Deerhoof, and Stephen Malkmus play Urban soon. Blue Scholars recently played there.

Head Like a Kite was supposed to play at Kilby Court but it was moved to Urban Lounge. It's cool to see different clubs work together to facilitate a touring band. It was Tate’s birthday. Tate is nice as can be. His band the Lionelle played and everyone danced and got scatter grooved. A pregnant woman was drinking beer out of a huge lager style mug. It wasn’t just a belly, the woman was pregnant, and drinking beer, and nobody said anything to her. Hopefully it was near beer.

The movers and shakers of Salt Lake City are engineering a new frozen alcoholic treat, never before attempted by man - Otter Pops with Everclear dripped in. The sure fire way to get your Mormonic vomit on. They call it the Alco-Pop. Instead of Alexander the Grape, it’s Ralph the Ralphing Flavored Iced Treat. Wait, Everclear can’t freeze. The Salt Lake movers and shakers will be enjoying Ralph the Slushie Treats instead. Good luck with that.

The owner of Kilby Court saw a Chubicabra beast about four years ago. Some sort of werewolf they say, or dog on its hind legs, gnarling. It was standing outside a window of one of the Kilby apartments looking in. The owner threw a hammer through the window at it. The beast made strange noises then ran to the other side of the place and apparently hopped on the roof where it made more weird noises. I believe the Chubicabra was an unshaven gnarling man who had dabbled a bit heavily into the Alco Pops.

We stayed with Steven that night. Steven was born in the United States, but has no social security number. He’s making a documentary about what his life is like. Somehow he has a passport, and he’s starting to invest in real silver and gold. The S in $, that’s silver. Thank you Steven. I held a real silver dollar from 1972, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the pregnant woman drinking beer.

Hold tight......GO!

Fuuuudge.

50 Cent and G-Unit Tour – featuring 50, Young Buck, Lloyd Banks and Tony Yayo – will stop at the Coca-Cola Dome in Johannesburg on May 1 and the Belville Velodrome in Capetown on May 3.

The last time Fitty went to Africa, he came back "empty-handed."

50 Cent is leaving the African adoptions to Madonna and Angelina Jolie. The rapper came back from Angola empty-handed. “Black folks, we have kids,” he told Hot 97 radio host Miss Jones. She countered, “And we try to get rid of the ones we got …”

Fitty is hiphop's Britney.

Late night at a motel. A vortex of interstate activity. Obese families in Ford Tauruses with Bush stickers on them. These are the people that are interested in Britney. And sex tapes. Everything is a rock show. Even church.

A team of dirt bike racers is in the room below. They’re knocking back Vodka-Gatorades and looking for poontang. A church group two doors down hides their daughters. Scents waft.

You check into your room. Brush teeth. And there it is, a giant burly pube on the sink, sitting there like a thick black piece of corkscrew pasta. Coiled like a viper. Staring up at you, waiting to strike. You brush and look away. And try not to think about the fact that that pube probably came from the crotch of a chicken molesting trucker named Baxter.

Time for sleep. Finally, sleep. The sanctity of a bed after a long day. You turn down the sheets and there’s a stain. Face sized. It’s like the Shroud of Turin. Is it dirt? Is it blood? Is it make-up? Jesus Christ. Maybe it’s Baxter’s face. Sleep comes before you can fully investigate.

During the Seattle - LA drive, here’s what recurs: Consumption of coffee to be alert. And consumption of water because the coffee dehydrates. Then it’s hard to make time because the bladder says, “Me me me.”

And so enters the risk of the Little John Portable Urinal for men, which came with the Lady J female adapter. The Lady J looks complicated. Can you do the Lady J and drive?:

Or, the Pit Stop:

Here’s the Pit Stop, the portable urinal designed for truckers that's tailor-made for guys and gals with promises to keep. The receiving end is designed to be mounted on the wall of a truck’s sleeper cab, while the leakproof container at the other end of the five-foot transfer hose is self-sealing with a quick-disconnect mechanism. The 1.25-gallon tank's carrying handle facilitates easy transport of all of that detritus without danger of spillage, and is probably big enough for a non-stop coast-to-coast haul.

Without danger of spillage. Without danger of spillage? Look at that thing. There is much danger of spillage.

*****

Detritus - de·tri·tus n:

1. debris or discarded material
2. fragments of rock that have been worn away
3. organic debris formed by the decomposition of plants and animals

Dethklok, the biggest metal band on the planet, is coming to the Showbox SODO on June 2nd. Chances are everyone in the audience is going to die a horrible, bloody death. Tickets go on sale April 19th, $22adv/$25dos. Who would have thought that the guy who made Home Movies could totally shred?

Full schedule after the jump.

The full tour schedule (should you want to stalk the band) is after the jump.

Tickets prices are $49.50, $79.50, $149.50 and $250.00 and go on sale Saturday, April 5 at 9:00 a.m. at all Ticketmaster outlets, Ticketmaster.com, livenation.com, or charge by phone (206) 628-0888.

And now, to get your Thursday started off right...

Full tour schedule posted after the jump.

May 5 Chop Suey Seattle, Washington
May 6 The Plaza Club Vancouver, British Columbia
May 7 Doug Fir Portland, Oregon
May 9 Cafe du Nord San Francisco, California
May 10 Knitting Factory Los Angeles, California