Strange tales - Weird Las Vegas takes readers on an eerie tour of Sin City
by JARRET KEENE
IN RECENT YEARS, THE LAS VEGAS POPULATION BOOM has coincided with an equally formidable travel-writing explosion among local writers. Consider CityLife news editor Matt O'Brien's Beneath the Neon (a grim tour of Vegas storm drains), or Jack Sheehan's Skin City (a superficial examination of our adult-entertainment industry), or Steve Friess' self-explanatory Gay Vegas. Every entertainment writer in town, it seems, has just brought out an unusual tome on Vegas or is busy meeting a deadline on one. What else could explain Sterling Publishing's choice of Zamora the Torture King as co-author of Weird Las Vegas?
Actually, the selection isn't so puzzling. Turns out Zamora's real name is Tim Cridland, a Las Vegan who, before he decided to make a living by sticking spikes through his face, used to publish a 'zine devoted to the weird called Off the Deep End. This venture allowed him to indulge in his passion for sideshow acts by forming one himself with the help of friends. His act would eventually evolve into the Jim Rose Circus, which toured not just Lollapalooza but the world. If Cridland's name (or pierced profile) seems familiar, it's because you've seen him on shows like Ripley's TV, Guinness World Records and 48 Hours. Oh, and he already co-wrote the book Circus of the Scars, a history of the early years and rise (if you can call it that) to infamy of the Jim Rose Circus.
With assistance by National Lampoon writer/illustrator Joe Oesterle, Cridland homes in on everything wild and wacky that could ever be found in Nevada. This trip takes the reader from the opening elaboration on the dead-body-under-the-hotel-mattress urban legend to the final two-page spread of Michael Heizer's "Double Negative," two giant trenches carved into a mesa in Overton, Nev., that comprise what they call in art circles an "earthwork," whereby public art interacts or merges with the surrounding environment. Obviously, given the broad range of subject matter covered, Weird Las Vegas is a chunky, coffee table-worthy -- and cheap -- volume.
Some of the book's highlights? Well, there's the "Ancient Mysteries" chapter, which details the findings of early 20th-century adventurer Captain Alan LeBaron: the man responsible for having uncovered evidence of an ancient land mass known as Cascadia, and his exploits were reported on extensively by the San Francisco Examiner. Writes Cridland:
The first of these reports concerned findings in Yerington. Here, in 1924, LeBaron discovered what he called the Hill of a Thousand Tombs. The "tombs" were about two feet square, concealed by stones fitted together without mortar. Inside each closure was a layer of gray sand and a circle of yellowish red sand. Some of the sand was sent to San Francisco for analysis and was shown to be bone lime and the remains of teeth ... LeBaron believed that these were the burial places of human heads, so ancient they had disintegrated into dust. Additionally, he discovered ancient writing at this location that he identified as Egyptian, Babylonian, and Mesoamerican.
It appears ancient Nevada bore more than a passing resemblance to Mel Gibson's violent Apocalypto. Indeed, the Hill of a Thousand Tombs sounds like the perfect desert horror film screaming out to be made. If this doesn't spark someone's cinematic imagination, then perhaps LeBaron's later discovery of the skull of a 7-foot man who boasted Chinese and Caucasian features at the site is enough to raise goose pimples. Or maybe the site of ritual human sacrifice he identified in Grapevine Canyon can stoke a filmmaker's mind.
In any case, there are plenty of strange stories told in Weird Las Vegas, including the Red-headed Giants of Lovelock Cave (oversized skulls and mummies, all of them having red hair) and the saga of the Deros (a fictional race of people living in Nevada's underground caverns created by writer Richard Shaver in the pages of Amazing Stories). Cridland and Oesterle succeed in making you wonder if any of these old newspaper articles and pulp ravings have any truth to them. Other excellent chapters include "Unexplained Phenomena" and "Bizarre Beasts," which respectively deal with the various UFO and Bigfoot sightings in Nevada over the years. I found the account of a spotted Bigfoot at the Nevada Test Site in 1980 intensely interesting, a synergy that brings together the best of both pop-cultural worlds: giant man-beasts and nuclear weapons technology. Also, should I ever make it to Hawthorne, you can be sure to find me out by Walker Lake looking for a creature that, spotted as recently as 1956 (cough!), measures at least 80 feet in length. And probably tastes like chicken.
In any case, add Weird Las Vegas to your collection of quirky books about Sin City (a collection, incidentally, that should also include Mike Weatherford's Cult Vegas). And check out Zamora through Sept. 20 at the Aruba (1215 Las Vegas Blvd. S.), where he's performing nightly at midnight. Admission: $25. Info: (818) 693-0492.
Weird Las Vegas and Nevada: Your Alternative Travel Guide to Sin City and the Silver State
By Joe Oesterle and Tim Cridland, Sterling, 250 pages.
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