Fort Lauderdale!

Just back from the Seminole Hard Rock Casino Improv, where the shows were great, and I spent my free time trying to figure out exactly which culture the casino hotel was embracing, the casino culture with old people chain smoking in front of slot machines, the Seminole culture with a native American museum featuring alligator wrestling, or the Hard Rock culture with a pair of drumsticks used by Starland Vocal Band for the song "Afternoon Delight" hanging on the wall. A strange merchandising melting pot, with blackjack tables, a Jamaican steel drum band, and lots and lots of people tooling around in electric scooters. My hotel room was decorated with a giant black and white photo of Elton John dressed as a sequined Statue of Liberty. I wish that was a joke. I ate a chicken caesar salad under a framed pair of wristbands worn by some guy in Whitesnake. I wish that was a joke. I met a young lady on leave from Iraq who told me that the press is ignoring the unbelievable work that the men and women of the Armed Forces of the United States are doing for the people there, and how proud she is of that work, and how she's going back in a week or so to finish her tour. She came to the show, I pointed her out in the audience, and she got a long, cheering standing ovation from the crowd at the Improv. That's no joke.

Happy fourth of July.