Melancholy on a Hot Vegas Night Written By: Jeffrey Rosczyk of Michigan

So now after a day's worth of coffee, I'm sitting pool-side @ The LVBP eating hot candies - while staring at the calm waves of the pool, that the breeze is making.   What a day, what a week, what a trip.  Today, I went to The Valley of Fire and walked through 120 degree canyons.

Though now, a cockroach runs across the edge of the patio next to the pool, contemplating whether it is going to jump in or not.  It does and I watch as it sinks to the bottom.  Was it suicide - the end of it's existence or just the beginning?  A soccer ball drifts by, blurring my vision of the sinking cockroach and eventually I lose sight of it all together.  Is this a metaphor of life?  Can we all lose sight of ourselves with one small distraction?  Was it a distraction?

"Insane in the membrane, insane in the brain."

The song blares over the outdoor pool speakers as British contemporaries now run by me, singing and dancing to the fast tempo rhythm; totally unaware of the dead cockroach at the bottom of the pool, somewhere out of sight.  They are all wearing bright retro Adidas warm-ups with sombreros on their heads - some drinking 1/5's of tequila and others pints of vodka.  They are all at the edge of the pool, like the cockroach. I wonder whether they are contemplating on jumping in?

My mind wanders, to an earlier conversation I had today with an old guy who runs the hostels sound system.  His name is Danny, although everyone refers to him as Pops.   Pops has lived all over the world, writing for newspapers and for himself - about various hotels and about his time in Vietnam.  He's done everything from riding across the country on a bicycle to sailing around the world in the Navy.  He even had three wives in-between, though non of which lasted.  He said he is like a cloud, floating across the sky, alone, desolate, and destined to die.  I gave him a CD to place in the stereo system.  It was one of, Joseph Arthur, whom I met last weekend in San Diego.  Over the speakers the song "Invisible Hands" played.   The verse;

"Now Jesus came down here to die for all our sins, I need HIM to come back here to die for me again..."

Drifts over the loud speakers and a tear runs down Pops' face.

Jeffrey Rosczyk
Team USA
PHOTOhype.com

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