I spent six months touring with a Vegas-style revue, Bottom’s Up.

I jointed the group in Central City, Colorado, then we went to Jackpot, Nevada.

The two cheeks in the butt-end of nowhere.

Then we were in Laughlin, Nevada.

I believe that Laughlin is an old native American word for “Land of the many and disgusting bugs.”

OMG.

Let’s see.

For a few weeks each Spring, the town is inundated with cicadas – a rather large grasshopper-ish kind of bug.

They literally coat the town.

There is nothing like driving through a parking lot covered with cicadas and hearing the tires crunch over their bodies.

Gack.

Then for a few weeks a year, they are invaded by some kind of large black shiny beetle.

These fuckers get into everything.

Including the slot machines.

Nothing quite like hearing someone’s joy when they hit a jackpot and then start screaming as a cascade of large black shiny beetles come out along with your money!

And then, there was the performance we had to do with Mothra’s body double up in the lights.

And occasionally, dive-bombing the stage.

You can’t ignore something like that.

We were in Laughlin from March through May.

The show was doing so well, that it was double-cast and split.

Happily, I was not part of the cast that stayed in Laughlin.

The rest of us went on to Lake Tahoe.

I think of it as my reward for not running screaming into the night after Laughlin.