Dean Martin Drive

Dean Martin Drive, Las Vegas. The final end game for anonymous buyer is underway. We scaled the heights of luck and winning in poker only to then fall back to the familiarity of desperate losing--and all in the course of a single month. We are content as the velocity of our life continues its asymtoptic approach towards zero.

We watched "The Tudors" on the hotel pay TV. A great series from Showtime that we had heard about but not seen. Peter O'Toole, it's been recently announced, is coming aboard for the second season as Pope Paul III. The Tudors fills the vacuum left for all those "spellbound onanistic audience" abandoned by The Sopranos. Jeremy Northam portrays Thomas More. He also happened to have done a spectacular job a few years ago inhabiting Dean Martin in the TV movie story of Martin and Lewis. The other guy from Will and Grace, you'll recall, played Jerry Lewis expertly. It all comes together, since Dean Martin was in life "A Man For All Seasons", as a man and supremely versatile entertainer. And, did you know that Sir Thomas More was named Patron Saint for politicians by John Paul II in 2000?

On the way to the Vegas airport late yesterday from the Rio, anonymous buyer asked the cabbie to take Dean Martin Drive, from Flamingo to Tropicana. And about midway to Tropicana what do you think flashed by: Why none other than a few feet of road called Jerry Lewis Way! There's also a Frank Sinatra Drive running parallel to Dino drive on the opposite side of I-15. But Dino Drive is by far the longest, the old industrial drive which runs south from Flamingo for ten miles or so.

We wept as the taxi travelled along Dean Martin Drive. We had tapped out, gambled tens of thousands away. Oh, well, easy come and easier to go. We have now done everything and the ultimate winding down can proceed. "Et lacrimatus est Emptor Anonymous". Blasphemous SOB, aren't we. And, according to our sister, an evil one as well. Our brother was the only true saint-- Requiescat In Pacem. All very true. Would that some of it were not so true. And would that we were not so inclined towards the same course as befell Judge Manzanares, Requiescat In Pacem. Well, as the saying goes, where there is life and breath then there is still hope.....for the time being.