We leave Salt Lake City around 5 p.m. and drive south on State Route 6. There used to not be rush hour in Utah, but now there is, and Ryen takes us down Route 6 to avoid traffic on the Interstate. He also wants to show me the west desert, the west dez. In the years since I’ve moved away, he’s explored so much of the state, knows all the small towns, can talk about different counties. I’ve forgotten almost everything.
Ryen covers these sorts of things on Polyester Blend Live (PBL), a hyperlocal Utah-centric Youtube show/podcast that Ryen and our friend Clayton started at the beginning of the pandemic and have kept it up since. I’ve been their third wheel for most of it, chiming in, telling jokes, doing goofs. Polyheads, we call ourselves. And over the years, we’ve scooped up a few more Polyheads, a regular cast of friends that meet up every Monday put on a show, sure, but mostly just want to inspire, create, impress, and make each other laugh.
Pat Munger was a Polyhead. Before he had a kid, he was on nearly every episode of PBL, often shirtless, sometimes lifting a kettlebell. We never met in person, but he’d call me randomly to talk about writing or comics or whatever. Pat was a caller.
Pat is gone now. He had a heart attack in a pool at the beginning of summer, and yeah.
After Pat died, I asked Ryen if he’d be interested in a road trip from Salt Lake to San Diego. I knew he was hurting over Pat, and perhaps a few days on the road would do him good. Get out of town, clear his mind, show me the west, and all that. He was down.
A few days before I flew out, I learned that my friend and former CityBeat editor Kelly Davis had died. It was cancer.
I got the news while on a tour of the LDS temple in La Jolla during their open house. I’d known that Kelly was in the ICU, and that she wasn’t expected to make it, but I was scared to ask for updates.
The temple was boring, bland and beige. I was starving. We were in the Celestial Room—which our guide had promised would be “beautiful”—when a friend sent me Kelly’s obituary.
Whether the Celestial Room was beautiful or not, I couldn’t tell you.
****
Somewhere around Eureka, Utah, the landscape turns black. A recent wildfire has scorched the land, the trees, the telephone poles. The devastation is total, straight out of a Cormac McCarthy novel. As if god flicked a zippo and ran the flame across the earth.
We’re talking about death. We’re talking about Pat, and then we’re talking about Kelly.
Ryen says he went to the hospital the night he found out about Pat, who was in a coma, so still alive, but not really. When doctors allowed visitors into the room, Ryen opted out. He didn’t want to see our friend in that state.
When I learned that Kelly was in the hospital, I texted her husband Brian to see if she was accepting visitors. He politely declined, said he’d been turning people away, that Kelly wanted people to remember her how she was instead of how she is. I was more or less relieved. I couldn’t imagine seeing Kelly knowing it was the last time I was going to see her.
“I wouldn’t have a writing career if it wasn’t for Kelly,” I say, and then stop because I feel my voice start to break. I turn to watch the ashen landscape. Ryen keeps driving. The wildfire had torched the bases of the telephone poles—warped and splintered them—but hadn’t climbed to the top, and it looks like the road is lined with crooked crosses.
****
We get to Vegas around midnight. Ryen’s a degenerate gambler so he’s gotten us comped rooms on Fremont Street. I’m at The D, and he’s at El Cortez. We pretty much talked the entire way from Salt Lake to Vegas—remembering, divulging, admitting—and I feel spent. Too tired even for the casino.
I open the door to my hotel room. It’s freezing and there’s an awful sound. The A/C unit is definitely going through some shit. I chew a weed gummy and deliberate what to do. I’m not registered in the room—Ryen has essentially snuck me in—and I don’t want to jeopardize his free-hotel-room status by revealing my freeloading ass.
But the A/C unit sounds like it’s been smoking 10 packs a day since Vegas’s mob days, and it’s too loud to ignore. I call the front desk. They say they’ll send someone up, and I go into the bathroom to gauge how high I look, and I look very, very high. But it’s Vegas, so.
A short while later, a young maintenance worker knocks at my door. A kid, really. He opens the A/C casing, removes what looks like 100 pounds of electronics and shoves another 100 pounds back in. Just like switching a printer cartridge. I’m amazed, but also high. I keep saying thank you and wow and damn and awesome! He’s finished in less than five minutes.
When he’s gone, I crank the A/C. It’s quiet ahhh but doesn’t condition shit, only pulls in the hot desert air.
****
I wake in the morning sweaty, stripped to my boxers. I call the front desk again, and they send another person up.
“I saw there was an issue last night,” he says. “Did nobody come?”
“Yeah, it was a noise last night. Now it just blows hot air.”
“I got you,” he says, dragging in another A/C. “I was testing this downstairs. Really cranked it. Should be much better.”
“Awesome!”
He leaves and I turn the A/C down as far as it will go. It doesn’t work either.
Ryen has to work remotely, and says he’ll be finished around five. I have several hours to kill, which I do by sweating it out, practically naked in my hot room. I open my computer and try to write down thoughts about Kelly and Pat, but it makes me too sad so I switch to writing trivia questions. When the heat makes that too difficult, I walk to Circa to take advantage of Stadium Swim—a massive rooftop swimming pool bar where adults can watch sports. A free perk for guests of The D.
I ascend miles of escalators and walk through an elaborate rope corral to get there, but since my name’s not on the hotel reservation, they won’t let me in, at least not for free. I retreat, do the aforementioned journey in reverse, but slower and sadder. When I get back to my oven, I eat another gummy and fall asleep until Ryen gets off work.
****
I became web editor at San Diego CityBeat in 2012. It was a dark, dank office where only the editor and the publisher had windows. Kelly’s desk was in the corner, and mine was set up perpendicular. If she looked up from her work, she’d be staring right at my profile, trollishly slouched, a nightmare of lumbar support.
I can’t describe how incredible it was to be in Kelly’s proximity while she did her job. I loved listening to her interview sources for her stories. Her ability to put powerful feet to the coals was only surpassed by her compassion, especially when reporting on jail deaths and homelessness. It was an education on not just journalistic integrity, but the gravity of the profession. That is, the written word can still have a profound impact.
During my first year at CityBeat, I was convinced that she didn’t like me. Even though we were office neighbors, we barely talked. I felt like a rube, a weirdo, and whenever I pitched something during an editorial meeting—which was rare because I was shy and anxious—she would look to CityBeat’s editor in chief, Dave Rolland, like what the fuck?
Sometime in early 2014, Kelly threw me a bone. Harrah’s SoCal resort had just undergone a massive remodel and they were holding a media preview weekend to get some good press. Kelly asked if I wanted to go. It would be a free trip, everything covered. She didn’t even ask me to write about it. I’m pretty sure she only offered it because I was a part-time employee and not making a livable wage.
I couldn’t say duh hard enough.
I absorbed every weird, hysteric moment of the SoCal Harrah’s media preview. It was my first experience being wined, dined, schmoozed, and I never knew the lengths PR people go to impress the media. It all felt hysterical and wild and even vulgar to a degree. That everyone accepted this as normal was even more baffling to me.
I wrote about the weekend, even though nobody asked me to. I went deep—not only about the ridiculousness of the event, but my own anxieties and awkwardness that kept me from thinking and reacting like a regular human being. It was an epic piece. 2,000 words. The Moby Dick of hotel reviews. I turned it in, and Kelly put it on CityBeat‘s blog. Didn’t even make it to print.
That review got more hits than anything else that year. It was spread around San Diego journalism circles. I got emails from strangers saying how much they loved it.
The PR people hated the article. I didn’t think it was negative, but it wasn’t fluffy, which is what every PR person wants when they hook a writer up.
(PS: this story suffers because all of CityBeat’s archives were deleted from the internet, thereby erasing all of Kelly’s invaluable social justice reporting, but more importantly, my hotel review).
The PR agency was furious. They called Kelly and asked how CityBeat could run a story like mine. The sales team of CityBeat weren’t exactly stoked that I had lost them an advertiser.
But Kelly had my back. She defended me from all of them. I didn’t even learn the extent of the fallout until years later.
Based on the popularity of that article, Dave said, “Why don’t we give you a regular column?”
****
When Ryen finishes work, we go to Atomic Golf, a driving range in the blighted area of Vegas around the Strat Casino. I’ve been getting targeted ads for dumb Vegas shit all day, and this one says I can pay $70 for two hours of unlimited beer, food, and hitting golf balls. I’ve never been to one of these kinds of things (i.e. Top Golf), never actually been golfing apart from putt-putt, but of all the touristy ads I’ve been fed, this one looks the most ridiculous, the one I’d never think of doing on my own, so probably the most fun.
We arrive early, and there’s a handful of people waiting for Atomic Golf to open. There are two teens on what looks like a date, both standing in 100-degree shade and looking at their phones. There also appears to be a big family reunion happening tonight, a group that keeps growing as more harried parents and their overstimulated offspring show up.
A group of bros in their early 30s wearing polos and knee-high socks arrives. They look like they’re all carbon copied from a hims dot com ad. I can’t tell if it’s a bachelor party or what, but it’s only 7:00 and they’re already loud and overly confident in the way that rich techbros get when they let loose. I’m sure if someone were to come around and offer the opportunity to hunt humans for sport, they’d be all over it. But the woman checking them in seems unfazed by their obnoxiousness. This must be the target audience for Atomic Golf.
We’re thirty minutes early for our reservation but the woman lets us in anyway. Our designated server—a small woman with huge eyelashes and neck tattoos—leads us up to our bay, and as we stare directly into the setting sun, it becomes obvious why it’s so easy to book a 7:00 timeslot. A heavy sun shade has done little to curb the heat, and the misters in the bay only make us feel sweatier.
I order Modelos and hot wings. When I point to the menu, I notice my pit stains spreading out like an epidemic map.
We golf. I swing. I have no skill, no finesse. I use cliches learned from movies or casual conversation to direct my technique. It’s all in the hips, eyes on the ball, let gravity do its thing, keep the forward arm straight. Who knows if any of this shit is actually right. Every ball whizzes right or left, but the satisfying swoop-click of the good swing stirs something primeval in me, almost violent. No wonder rich people love this sport.
A comfortable silence settles over us at Atomic Golf. Most of our conversation is ribbing each other when we fuck up. I think you’re supposed to hit the ball, we say.
Our two hours fly by. The sun drops and the evening cools somewhat. I’m four or five Modelos in and my game has improved dramatically, but I also feel a little unhinged—drenched in sweat with buffalo sauce slathered all over my face as well as all the clubs in our bay. It doesn’t matter. We’re not really golfers, just men going through the motions.
Atomic Golf’s in-house photographer—a kid who can’t be older than 19—shows us the pictures that he’s taken throughout our session.
“This is the money shot,” he says, showing a picture of Ryen and I making idiotic, slack-jawed faces.
“It’s our fiftieth anniversary,” Ryen says.
The kid laughs, but then gets serious. “Have you really been a couple for 50 years?”
“No,” Ryen says.
“I’ll take it.” I say, and tap my card against his payment machine and buy the money shot.
****
Weeks after returning from the roadtrip, I’ll watch Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey in IMAX. I will stare at the spectacle of it, but leave without feeling any desire to analyze critically. My biggest takeaways are 1) sad men will always fall into their little projects to distract them from grief, and 2) the movie does a good job of making everything look heavy.
****
The next morning, I try Stadium Swim again. Ryen has added my name on the hotel reservation, so I should be good to go. I walk down Fremont in swim trunks, flip-flops, a tie-dye Primus shirt. Essentially the least fuckable man in Vegas. Women in skimpy costumes—butt women, I think—try wrangling me into whatever grift they’re hocking.
“Where are you from?” they ask.
“On my way to the pool,” I mumble all grizzled like.
Again I ascend Circa’s endless escalators. Again I meander through the rope corral. This time, my name checks out and they strap an arm band around my wrist. As the security guard inspects my backpack, he finds a single serving of cold medicine pills and special gummies disguised in a multivitamin bottle. I hadn’t intended to eat any at the pool, had just forgotten they were in there.
“No outside food in Stadium Swim,” he says. “You can rent a locker or take them back to your room.”
I weigh the options. I look past the security guard; the sun backlights him with blinding contrast. I know that just beyond him, the temperature has already hit the triple digies.
“Is there any shade out there?” I ask.
The guard makes a pained, wincing face. “Not really.”
“And no sunscreen?”
“No, but you can buy some downstairs.”
I pretend to think about it. “I’m gonna put this back in my room,” I say, motioning to my backpack.
“You sure?” Suddenly the guard seems very sympathetic, as if he knows this is the second time I’ve failed at Stadium Swim. “You have a room here at Circa?”
“No,” I say. “But I’ll be back.”
“See you soon.” It sounds like he really hopes to see me soon.
I go downstairs, order a $20 breakfast burrito from one of Circa’s restaurants, and take it back to my room to eat in the privacy of my dark oven.
****
Later, I return to Circa to watch the Morocco vs. France World Cup game on the casino’s humongous LED display. I put $20 on Morocco because just for a moment I think I understand sports and the world. I buy a 32 oz cold Mexican lager and sit in one of the few empty seats, next to a woman who’s passed out. Beer in one hand, a ticket showing my potential winnings in the other, I feel like a man that I’ve struggled my entire life to become, like I’m finally a real boy.
Ryen arrives. Morocco loses. I tear up my ticket and we leave Las Vegas.
****
After thirty minutes on the road, Ryen pulls into a strip mall parking lot. At one end, garish hearses and the Ghostbusters car sit in front of a building that looks like it was once a family-owned Chinese restaurant. “Tom Devlin’s Monster Museum” the sign reads, spookily. Across the parking lot is Outpost 51 Alien Museum. Ours is the only car in the parking lot. Neither of us knows who Tom Devlin is, but a monster museum is a monster museum.
A sullen goth girl works the register, and I wonder if there’s a goth scene in Boulder City. Maybe this is it. Maybe she lives at the museum.
Turns out, Tom Devlin is a makeup and special effects artist who’s worked on countless B-horror films; his most well-known accomplishment being the creator of the puppets in Puppet Master. The place is filled with his personal collection of props, but also a general history of horror through the ages, with handmade lifesize sculptures of all the famous characters: Leatherface, Jason, Beetlejuice, etc. None of the figures look quite right, like they were rendered from memory. Temu Michael Myers; Temu Pinhead. But there’s a charm to the jankiness, and a weirdo artistry that flourishes in the desert (see: Salvation Mountain, East Jesus). And for a minute I consider how a place focused on death and the gruesome ways people leave this world would bring me joy, especially right now.
Although I wish at least one of the lifesize sculptures was a person in disguise to jumpscare us, Ryen and I leave Tom Devlin’s Monster Museum better people for having experienced it.
Ryen takes us to the Hoover Dam. I’ve never seen it. He talks about the multiple times he’s rafted the Colorado, and the incredible experience of putting-in just beneath a mammoth stone walling holding up all the west’s water. We park and walk to the Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge, a massive feat of human engineering which overlooks the dam. The wind is so strong up here that we have to lean into it. It feels risky to take my phone out for a photo. Ryen won’t even look over the edge.
On the other side of the dam, a ribbon of white marks a history of more prosperous times. It reminds of the song “Big Empty” by Stone Temple Pilots, and then I wonder why everything in the desert feels so big and sad.
****
A few things I’ll remember about Pat Munger: he loved poker, he loved writing, he hated horror.
One night on PBL, Pat started talking about the 2022 Australian horror film Talk To Me, which had just come out in the theaters. I’d loved the movie, but Pat wanted nothing to do with it. When pressed on what he didn’t like, he responded, “Everything.” Then someone else said something about horror being the most “basic” of genres, so I didn’t push it, just smouldered.
Like, it’s fine if you don’t like horror, but I’ll think less of you. Just a little.
Another thing I’ll remember about Pat: for all his rugged, Hemingway-esque qualities, he had a soft, creative spirit. He’d watch every episode of PBL, even if he was not on it. He’d provide notes and suggest things we could do. He’d pitch ideas for segments—including his own stand-up comedy segment, and perhaps his most ambitious idea: an intricate, weeks-long treasure hunt that had our friends scouring Salt Lake City for some dumb prize.
Pat was a huge fan of “Ryan’s Comics Corner”—a segment where I’d show daily comic strips from the previous week and we’d analyze them (this eventually devolved into focusing on Mary Worth and its legion of deranged fans). Pat was so enamoured with that storytelling form that he would call and we’d talk about his own comic that he was working on. The last texts he ever sent me were about work in progress.
****
According to Ryen’s car thermometer, the temperature is 116 when we pull into Laughlin, Nevada. The sun’s nearly down but the heat is so oppressive that it feels like we’re doing some self-flagellating cleanse, something wellness influencers would convince their idiot followers to do.
Ryen knew I’d be into Laughlin. It’s just something I need to experience, he says. He’s right. I’ve never been to a place where the cowboyness of Wyoming meets the trashiness of Florida and sizzles together in a desert frying pan. This is a new experience for me.
“More like laughin’ Nevada,” I say.
“Laughin’ Nevada,” Ryen agrees.
In the hotel room, we drink tequila sodas and eat special gummies. I’m happy to share a room with Ryen, now realizing that the malaise I felt in Vegas was not just due to heat, but loneliness too. We turn the temperature down to frosty and I soak in every air-conditioned second.
We embark on a nighttime journey. Ryen wants to show me all the casinos that line the river. We follow the promenade that runs between the water and buildings. We pass tired families and romantic couples. Bats flit above the river. We duck into every casino along the way, making sure that we’re not missing any gem that Laughlin has to offer.
“How are your gummies?” Ryen asks.
“Good, I think. You?”
“Just noticing the lights. Yeah.”
When we reach the end of the river walk, we head back. We’re hungry and laughing. Back at our casino, we hit a food counter called Bean and Bread and the two 19-year-old workers seem to be going through some interpersonal drama.
“Po’boys?” Ryen asks, reading the menu. “Where does the meat come from?” The servers don’t understand the question. Oh no no no, I’m thinking.
“The meat!” Ryen says. “We’re in a desert!”
I order a chili-cheese dog. The two kids behind the counter berate each other for not doing their jobs. One of them hands me a styrofoam clamshell with a nasty looking plop on it. Ryen takes my picture and says if there’s another worldwide pandemic, he’ll need to provide evidence of where it started.
“Where does the meat come from?” I keep repeating, and it’s funny every time.
After eating, we huddle around video Blackjack. Blackjack is my game; craps is Ryen’s. He likes to play big, so it’s killing him that I’m only feeding the machine $20, wagering the minimum, not doing any of the ridiculous sidebets. “You should be mortgaging your house right now!” Ryen says. We’re not really playing, still laughing about the kids from Bean and Bread, when a waitress comes up and says, “Okay, gigglers, what can I get you?” We’re both in our 40s.
We ride up the elevator with a rough dude holding an In-N-Out bag, super stoked that he made it to In-N-Out before they closed. We concede that he is indeed lucky. We get off on the same floor as him, and Ryen says, “Oh we’re just down in room—” and then gives the dude our room number. Oh no no no, I’m thinking.
“I didn’t want him to think we were following him!” Ryen says when I ask why he did that. We then come up with a lot of scenarios that would further put the guy at ease: here’s our home addresses, our social security numbers, our drivers licenses. Ta ta and goodnight, good sir!
I lay in bed as Ryen gears up to go back out into the night. He straps his camera on and basically tucks me in. Before he leaves, he points to a pattern of light shining in through the window. “It looks like the Scream mask,” and I see exactly what he sees. He leaves. I whisper, “Where does the meat come from?” and laugh myself to sleep.
Laughin’ Nevada.
****
The name of my CityBeat column was called “Well, That Was Awkward.” The general consensus between Dave, Kelly, and me was that WTWA would be experiential and gonzo, similar to what I’d done with the Harrah’s SoCal review. As a writer, this was a dream assignment—I got carte blanche to write about anything. I also had the clout of a newspaper to grant me access to anything. For the six years that I worked at CityBeat, I got to live out my wannabe Hunter S. Thompson life.
But where Thompson tackled his stories with righteous First Amendment confidence, mine were fueled by anxiety. I didn’t want “Well, That Was Awkward” to just be stupid adventures, but a deeper reflection on what makes life so ridiculous and lowkey frightening. Without trying to sound pretentious, I wanted each article to reveal the absurdity of our modern era.
A funny thing happened, too: writing about my anxiety helped with my anxiety. The underlying fight-or-flight tension that I”d felt since seventh grade began to diminish. Sharing my feelings and perspectives was a form of therapy. I hope it helped other people see their own anxieties, and maybe recognize the absurdity in the mundanity around them. I’ve always believed that the only reason life isn’t devastatingly frightening is because we have to live it every day.
The column won awards, including the prestigious Herbert Lockwood “Woody” for Humor Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists.
I distinctly remember Kelly asking me if I was going to attend the award ceremony. I told her I didn’t think so, and she said I should strongly reconsider. She knew.
When I left CityBeat at the end of 2019 to start this newsletter, I took the spirit of the column with me. It’s gone through different iterations over the past seven years, varied in prolificness, but I think it still possesses the heart, the essential quality that Kelly saw in me at the beginning.
****
The next morning, Laughlin is hazy from one of the many wildfires raging through the area. We pack up and drive to Los Angeles. On the way, we listen to a podcast about Spielberg’s Minority Report in silence. I can tell Ryen is hurting from his adventures the night before, so I offer to drive.
Somewhere around The Devil’s Punchbowl, a huge plume of smoke rises from the mountains. The highway is lined with emergency vehicles and everything’s tinted orange. We drive toward the burning mountain, feeling an inevitability, that this is our world now, that everything is on fire.
****
Ryen books us a room at the Burbank Ramada Inn off the highway. Burbank, we learn, fucking sucks. We scour Reddit for things to do, places to eat, and all the recommendations are: leave Burbank.
We find a chic, airy Mediterranean restaurant where the staff and clientele are beautiful and the food is good, maybe even healthy. It’s the complete opposite of Laughlin. To think that only yesterday we were suckin’ on chili dogs while chemically-induced into a feral state is yet another reminder that life is, indeed, a highway.
The next day, we pick up our friend Louis, and go to Universal Studios. Ryen wants to go on the studio tour to relive a childhood trauma of the Jaws section, and it doesn’t disappoint. We then catch the Waterworld show, and when it’s over, I valiantly declare that I could see myself becoming a fan of theatre.
That evening, Louis takes us to a Dodgers game. I’m only a fairweather baseball fan, but it feels like a grave faux pas to be a San Diegan there, even shameful. However, Dodgers Stadium is breathtaking, and only more so when the last of the special roadtrip gummies kick in. Louis got us seats in the uppermost deck above home plate, and from there we can see the city on one side and the hills on the other. “Beautiful,” I keep saying.
It’s also a bobblehead night, and tonight’s figure is not even a baseball player, but some member of the Los Angeles Football Club. Regardless, every adult drunkenly, open-mouthedly cradles their little toy like it was bestowed upon them by god, and I do too. It becomes my mission to care for this little bobblehead, to get it home safe and sound.
The game ends. Dodgers lose (ha ha) by a lot (ha ha ha). Ryen, Louis and I walk two miles back to Louis’s apartment, stopping along the way for churros at El Moro, waiting in line alongside a legion of drunken baseball fans clinging to their bobbleheads. We all have the same mission, I think. We’re all in this together.
****
In the morning, I leave before Ryen wakes up. I drag my suitcase through residential streets of Burbank to the station where I’ll take a train that will deliver me back to San Diego. Tonight, there’s a celebration of life party at Kelly’s house, put on by her husband Brian. I want to be there, but also sort of dreading it. The closest of her friends will be there, including a lot of folks from CityBeat whom I haven’t seen for years, and I’m not sure how I will handle everything.
I sit in my seat and watch Los Angeles County become Orange County become San Diego County. I listen to sad music and think of Pat and Kelly. I doze lightly to Craig Finn’s song “God in Chicago” on repeat—the saddest road trip song I know—and wake up with tears in my eyes.
When my wife texts to ask which San Diego train station I’ll be at, I mistakenly give her the wrong one, so no one’s there waiting for me when I get home.
This was another great read, Ryan. I have an immense amount of respect for you as a writer. Hope you're doing alright, man.
the last line & the pic of Kelly have me really fucked up. in a good way. sending all the hugs. this is a really really good one.