Hanging out with Dr. Paul is an intense experience. Conversation can hurtle suddenly from a discussion of the films of Jack Arnold to a discussion of Paul and Peter in Antioch to a discussion of the resemblance between Dylan’s literary method and the parables of Rabbi Jeshua bar Joseph. This is my idea of big fun.

Above we get into something at the House Of Blues, where my sister Lee and Dr. Paul and I had dinner before the Dylan concert at the Mandalay Bay Events Center.  In quieter moments I tried to prepare myself through solitary meditation for the even greater intensity of seeing Dylan live.

The good doctor took a quick trip up to The Mix Bar to survey Las Vegas whole.  As a preacher he always hopes to find hordes of especially desperate souls to save here in Sin City but invariably finds instead gaggles of extremely pleasant and cheerful people pretending to be naughty and feeling very giddy in the process.  It’s a veritable sea of innocence, in which people given permission to be bad decide instead to be companionable and sweet.  (There’s a lesson here, first expounded in the letters of Paul of Tarsus.)

Fortunately he was able to make contact with one lost soul in need of emergency spiritual aid, which eased his mind considerably.

Then we all headed off to the Events Center to have our own souls shaken and revived.

. . . in Las Vegas unless it is photographed.  Dr. Paul stood before a great neon guitar — because I photographed it.  I photographed it because my sister Lee photographed me photographing it.  My sister Lee did not photograph me photographing it because no one photographed her photographing me.

This is why nothing ever happens in Las Vegas.

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My sister Lee arrived in town tonight for the Dylan concert on Saturday. She, Dr. Paul and I headed for El Taco Feliz so Lee could get some food. El Taco Feliz communicates with the Money Plays Bar, a locals’ joint, which was hopping — it was open-mike night and we were treated to a cavalcade of stunningly bad entertainment. Deep Las Vegas at its very best. Lee had fish tacos, Paul and I had some delicious Murphy’s Stout.  A fine time was had by all.

Click on the image to enlarge.