Joel Bryant Blog

EMPTY AMERICA: Las Vegas

3/31/2020

Seeing Los Angeles’ busiest areas emptying out (not fully deserted yet as the state had just come under a “shelter in place” mandate and there were still a number of people that hadn’t been online-shamed into staying home yet) I thought I’d check out an area in the States that surely wasn’t anywhere near apocalyptic. Even though there had been a few hotels and casinos voluntarily shutting down and the “close your restaurants and bars” edict had been announced, certainly Las Vegas wouldn’t be....closed. Right?

The drive up I-15 to Las Vegas on a Friday afternoon can be a nightmare. Those Angelenos that don’t opt for a cheap Southwest flight usually crowd that thoroughfare from 2pm to midnight and, since there’s really only one way to get from LA to LV, it’s generously packed from Friday to Sunday.

My first taste of Las Vegas suffering as great a fate as LA, maybe even greater considering the economics, was that, after getting on the 15N around 3pm, it was absolutely smooth sailing all the way into the city. Barely a slow-down. One theme that continued on my trip was that I was always only one of a handful of passenger vehicles I would see on the interstate. Any traffic, when you saw it, was interstate truckers delivering their “essential” goods.

I stopped into Henderson to say “hi” to Mom. I would say Henderson looked deserted but...it always looks deserted. It’s a slow suburb on the outskirts of Las Vegas that caters to a local and older crowd. I did think I would grab a cup of coffee and some wifi at Starbucks before seeing her then realized “Oh yeah. That’s not an option for a rubber tramp anymore.” So I sat in the parking lot outside of a drive-thru only Starbucks and syphoned off their wifi from the comfort of my tiny car.

When the sun finally went down I decided it was time to see if Las Vegas had truly done the unthinkable and shut down. A day-time drive probably would’ve answered that, but if this was as serious as it seemed, a lights-less Vegas Strip would be the tell-tale sign.

I started on the southern end of the Strip and was immediately answered that yes, this is serious. And unimaginable. And eerie.

The Mandalay Bay had it’s sign lights on but, as was the case with all of the enormous hotels that line the strip, the building itself was dark because there were no residents, no indoor lights, no one to click them on.

Luxor, Excalibur, MGM Grand...all dark buildings.

There were a few consistencies from hotel to hotel that led me to believe this was a joint hotel-owner decision:

If you had an outdoor neon sign on, the message didn’t advertise any upcoming shows or buffet specials but rather had a variation on the message: “Stay Safe. Stay Healthy. We’ll See You Soon.”

Every casino/hotel had metal gates in front with at least 2 cop cars if not more preventing entrance even into the driveways or parking structures.

Then there were the hotels that had completely shut everything off: Mirage. Caesar’s Palace. Tropicana. Those images were absolutely shocking to see a behemoth of a building on the flashiest most happening strip of road in the world to be absolutely dark. Someone just flicked a switch and indicated: “We’re closed.”

The Strip on a Friday at 9pm can be an absolute parking lot of taxis, Ubers and misguided tourist drivers. Tonight, unimpeded from stoplight to stoplight.

The streets that are usually packed with revelers, frat boys, bachelorette parties, Midwesterns, street performers and vendors were 100% cleared. I didn’t see a soul walking around. And why would you? Where are you going?

I never thought I’d see Las Vegas shut down.

I made my way to Fremont Street. It’s my preferred hangout in Las Vegas. It’s cheaper, packed closer together and a great walking area to bounce from casino to casino, hear mediocre cover bands and DJ’s, watch a mind-numbing ceiling light show and people watch all of the cheesier tourists, local homeless, hipsters, punks, train wrecks and ne’er-do-wells. To me, it’s always been more “Vegas.” It’s always hopping.

Now, it’s essentially been turned into one mass outdoor extinct mall lit up by floodlights and the occasional restaurant that’s trying to stay open (White Castle) but cater to who? The security?

The streets that run through and perpendicular to Fremont are still open to drive through, but there are crowd-control gates sectioning off the Street itself so you may not walk down it. Most of the grander lights are shut off. There were a few neon lights and casino billboards that were still on, obviously on some kind of timer.

However, it wasn’t the lack of lights on Fremont that unnerved me. It was the lack of sound. From noon until 2am it’s usually a cacophony of bass and rock covers and cheering and bucket banging and general casino sounds bouncing off it’s half-dome cover.

Tonight, I heard a security guy yell to another one from a block away, and the other answered.

I saw 2 other people taking pictures. How could you not? Las Vegas is shut down. 60% of the city is unemployed. It’s reason for being isn’t anymore. It truly felt like a shell of it’s former self, literally and figuratively.

Certainly the city’s properties have enough in their coffers to sweat out a shut-down, but these places employ thousands. The trickle down will be real in that city and you have to believe it won’t be able to manage a long shut-down. When it finally re-opens: Who’s going to have the funds to revitalize it? Is there anybody who is going to feel like gambling again? How long until we can let loose and have fun?

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EMPTY AMERICA: Los Angeles

3/27/2020

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We are living in unprecedented times. The worldwide pandemic has landed in the US. We’ve been told to self-quarantine, wash our hands, help stop the spread. None of this is earth-shattering news at this point. At least, I hope not. If it’s a shock to you as you read this, I would love to sleep in your guest bedroom under whichever rock you’ve carved out as a living space.

This hit me hard as I dwell in the freelance gig work force. 3 months of work, cancelled. The affect was two-fold as I’ve been living on the road for the past 18 months going gig to gig, so now not only was I jobless, but effectively homeless. I had to vacate the sweet little casita in Palm Springs that I had taken up residence in while working on a show out there.

I found myself in a unique situation: Where does one self-quarantine when they have been living on the road? How can you “shelter in place” if your place has been other places for the past year plus? And how does one stay creative if the creative opportunities just dried up?

So I took it to heart: The road became my self-quarantine. And creatively I decided to capture on camera what this unheard of experience is doing to America’s most busiest areas. Hopefully everybody is staying indoors safe and sound with their families. Since I got stuck on the road I decided to bring the road to those who are afraid to go outside to even check the mail.

(Safely. I’m taking all the precautions: Constantly washing my hands, not interacting with anybody, ordering food remotely, using a wipe when I get gas, gargling salt water, and, most importantly, spending 90% of my time in my car)

Since I was job-ousted in Palm Springs, my first self-assignment: How has coronavirus affected what I consider the most consistently busiest hubs in Los Angeles: Venice Beach and Santa Monica Pier (plus, the weather was beautiful).

I thought it would be a little more sparse. I’d heard most people weren’t taking it seriously so I thought it’d be interesting to see thinner crowds in usually crowded markets.

That idea was shattered quickly as I drove into Los Angeles during rush hour and made record time from Palm Springs. To see a city like LA have no traffic, to push cruise control once and not take it off until the freeway exit in Santa Monica, was astonishing. It’s hard to convey to anyone how surreal it is to drive the speed limit through Los Angeles on those freeways in the middle of the day. That was my first hint that the virus was real and, more importantly, that the fear was real.

I parked on the street in Santa Monica near the pier (once again: unheard of).

The Pier was closed off to foot traffic. All I was able to see was an amusement park at a standstill from a distance. No Ferris wheel spinning, no throngs of tourists, no cars. It almost seemed fake, like someone set up a replacement amusement park to stand in for the usual, joyful backdrop.

There were a few people on the running and bike path down to Venice Beach, a mile walk south, and all had some sort of protective gear on depending on which news source they’d watched: face masks, rubber gloves, hand towels. Even more intense than watching everyone walk around in home-fashioned Hazmat suits was the distance everyone kept. If you were heading towards someone, each of you would take a big banana curve away from that person to keep an estimated 6 feet. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t infected with the virus, however walking like that made me less sure. The lack of trust was humbling.

However, those kind of interactions were few and far between from the Pier down to Venice Boardwalk and even less so when I got there because it was shockingly empty. There were maybe a handful of people and most of those were the local denizens who most likely called it home day or night.

There was a gentleman dragging a cooler yelling “Monster drinks, one dollar” to no one. There were a few buskers with unfilled tip cups. There were maybe a handful of tourists who probably booked months in advance, didn’t get a refund, said “screw it, let’s go anyway” and now were ambling along in disappointment.

A few clothes shops were open, but there were no buyers. Most of the beachside cafes and bars were shuttered and those that were open were smaller food stands encouraging purchase but no hanging around.

4 people playing basketball. 3 people at the skate park. No one at Muscle Beach or on the pickleball courts.

The virus had definitely hit home and turned what is usually a churning, social hub of activity into a shell of it’s former self, almost like a lost neighborhood in a developing country that had long outlived it’s glory days.

I made my way back north towards the shopping epicenter of 3rd St. Promenade thinking surely there’d be something open there, some locals wandering around.

What I saw was a completely empty outdoor mall, fountains turned off, boarded up shops, busker free and security heavy. “Don’t Walk” signs didn’t matter because there were no cars. Luxury shops like Marc Jacobs and Louis Vuitton literally cleared out their stores in anticipation of the day the looting starts. I didn’t have to spend too much time there to realize that 3rd Street Promenade was absolutely, 100% empty.

This is a place I had spent so much time writing in sidewalk cafes, having my first drink at 21, bouncing between bars and movie theaters on a date or a friends night out, tipping very-good street musicians. It has been my haven in Los Angeles if there’s any place I wanted to wander and get distracted.

This time, there were no distractions. Just me, alone in my thoughts to take it all in.

The pandemic was real. It had begun shutting down America and emptying out her busiest thoroughfares. From friends’ social network feeds, I knew Los Angeles was complying, and now I saw the proof.

But certainly it wasn’t like this all over. Certainly Las Vegas still had a few lights on.

I exchanged some items in my storage facility and hit the deserted 10E to find out....

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