Oh The Guilt
A Mix Tape That Requires Some Explanation
One of the hallmarks of the old Swan Fungus blog was my willingness to share everything about my private life. Now that I’m older (and wiser) the concept of over-sharing makes me cringe. So, when I tell you that the reason I only posted once in April was because we had a bad month…well…you just have to trust me on that one. Ideally there would be one free post, one paid post, and one subscriber mix tape every month. So, yeah. There was a lot going on last month. I’ll try to make up for that now with a lengthier intro before the paywall.
My birthday provided an opportunity — and an excuse — to relax for a couple days and recharge our batteries, so we decided to skip town and head to Vegas for the weekend. As fate would have it, I was offered a free suite for three nights because I’ve built up a lot of goodwill with MGM over the past 18 years. My player rep also got us reservations to two new/hot restaurants on the strip. Oh, two unique events happening in town fell on my actual birthday. No brainer, right?
We got into town Friday afternoon, munched at Eataly and enjoyed a negroni before wandering up and down the strip for a few hours. Dinner that night was at Carbone Riviera in the Bellagio. The OG Carbone at Aria is one of our favorite places to eat on the strip, so we wanted to try the flashy new iteration with fountain views. It was decidedly meh!
The beef carpaccio is a holdover from the other locations, and was as good as it normally is, the Tableside Caesar was good, and our server slid a few extra anchovies across the table in addition to whatever went into the dressing. The showstopper was supposed to be “our famous two-pound lobster fettuccine” but the lobster was grilled a bit too hard and tasted rubbery. The fettuccine ate very soft, and the chili oil was nonexistent.
The meal was kind of a letdown, but not nearly as big a letdown as our visit to The Vault afterwards, where I had one of the worst cocktails I’ve ever tasted. I had a blast at The Vault on my birthday last year, but something was very off this year. Rather than go with something I enjoyed on my last visit I tried a new drink called Maison de Luxe that was made with black truffle-infused XO Cognac, lemon, fresh grated truffles, with truffle popcorn on the side. It sounded decadent but it was a hot mess. It tasted like a mealy, oaky lemon. And then the server dropped the truffle on the floor and it bounced away from us awkwardly. The whole thing was kind of a mess.
Thankfully, when we got back to our room we found out my sister and brother-in-law had sent along some birthday gifts, including macarons, chocolates, and a bottle of wine. It was a very nice gestures, and was a lovely way to start my birthday.
Saturday morning we awoke, showered, and made our way over to The Silver Stamp for their Zwanze Day festivities. We kind of stumbled upon it accidentally as I haven’t really tried to attend an event since 2018. I don’t even think any bar or brewery in southern California participates anymore. It used to be a really, really hot ticket that would sell out in seconds. The Silver Stamp was super low-key and chill, we didn’t have to line up early or pay in advance to enter. We kind of waltzed in on our own, grabbed some pours of this year’s iterations, and enjoyed them while soaking up some sun on the front patio across from the Little Vegas Chapel. Afterwards we polished off pours of Taras Boulba (one of my favorite beers in the entire world), Ayinger Bavarian Pils, and Schönramer Hell.
Lunch was a short walk away at Soulbelly BBQ. We opted for their “basic” pulled pork sando as well as The Belly Of Soul sando, which basically throws a fried egg and spicy aoli on smoked brisket. They were pretty good. As was the mac and cheese. We explored the Arts District for a while before we reached the zenith or pinnacle of our weekend — the A1, main reason for choosing Vegas as the destination best suited to celebrate my birthday — Phish at The Sphere.
Do not adjust your monitor, reader. You read that correctly.
For the first time since 1999 at the CoreStates Spectrum in Philadelphia, I bought tickets to see Phish in concert. I’ve been wanting to see something at the Sphere since it opened. No band I’ve liked has taken up a residency there, and I didn’t think The Wizard Of Oz would quite satisfy my desire to visit one of the more… unique concert venues in the country. To this day I have fond — and very hazy — memories of how cool and immersive the Phish live show could be. It seemed to be the best opportunity I’ve found yet to see a Sphere show, and… I mean… I don’t mind Phish. Even if I didn’t know any of the songs might play 26.5 years after the last time I saw them, it couldn’t possibly be a bad time.
Reader, you probably won’t believe me, but it was a great show. The visuals were unbelievable. The spatial audio and haptic feedback from the seats (which vibrated with almost every note played by bassist Mike Gordon) were giddying. The crowd was wholly invested. I took like, four photos and I felt like I had my phone out more than anyone around me. And the setlist was pretty good! They played nice spread of songs across several albums I know well. Even Christine had fun, and she has zero familiarity with Phish. We’ll probably never see them again, but at least we can say we shared the experience together.
The rest of the weekend was nice. We gambled a lot. Our final dinner in town was at Gymkhana and I liked it a lot more than Carbone Riviera. Afterwards we met up with Tom Grey for a drink! I guess he was in town for work. Something to do with Netflix. It was one of like, a million conversation topics we had to cover. I don’t think we’ve spent any time together since that one afternoon we were in the city a few years ago. It was good to see him.
All in all it was a very enjoyable weekend. We’ve been back in Los Angeles for about a week now, and friends and co-workers alike keep asking about it.
Well, specifically they ask about the show at the Sphere.
Phish? Really? You?
This presents a perfect segue into this month’s mix tape.
Paywall incoming.
