The Ballad of Yonema Tomiyasu

Back home, gated and guarded sub-developments are fucking everywhere, and in more than a few stripes. The most prominent of them come in two suits: first, the landfill-esque, borderline track-housing, golf course-neighboring, nouveau-riche neophytes (your Spanish Trails, your Canyon Gates, your Anthems). Then there're the older, archaic, out-of-the-way, old-school Vegas "communities." The reason these older subdivisions went up in the first place is because the land they were being developed on was cheap - off the strip, past McCarren Airport, and a little out of the reach of civilization, as anything at the time beyond Sunset Park was no man's land (and thus, susceptible to both rabid coyotes and old mafia vendettas, the former of which still remain). This is the kind I grew up in.

The street outside of our "neighborhood" was Tomiyasu Lane - named after Yonema "Bill Jap" Tomiyasu, the first successful farmer and agriculturalist in Southern Nevada - and along with the two gated communities that sit on it, there lie a motley crew of houses lining the first half of the stretch, the sum of which is the best collection of bad, one-hit architectural trends of the 80's and early 90's. Across from those houses? An empty, scorched lot burned four times over.

So, really, there're only two things on Tomiyasu Lane: the insanely rich, and some nearly undevelopable land that backs out onto a park filled with toxic ducks and heroin addicts. To say Tomiyasu would be rolling in his grave would be an gross understatement, since his namesake street was, of course, the land on which his family ranch used to lie (and would still be if not for a pesky bank foreclosure assisted by the county late in his life). This is more or less the main drag you took to get to my dad's house, where I spent most of my high school years.

Which brings me to the point: what would Tomiyasu Lane be without its infamous residents? The most "famous" people to live in our "neighborhood" were Robert Goulet, the manager of Slaughter, and for a little over a year between stints, Suge Knight (although De Niro did rent out Knight's house when shooting Casino - none of the above ever gave out treats on Halloween, notably). But on Tomiyasu Lane: even worse. Wayne Newton, the Sultan of Bernai, the Primm Family Estate, and an old location-set house from Crime Story. But the most interesting of those residents? Mike Tyson. It was always Mike Tyson.

It was, supposedly, the place of his with the Bengal Tigers in the back, or so we were convinced as kids. It had a gigantic white wall in front of it, and after he got out of the pen, an inordinately large, black SUV with rims and a bodyguard in it at all times, for years to come. When waiting for the cheesewagon on a cold January morning, at 6AM (50 degrees), the first day at my new school - freshman year, to be exact - Tyson came jogging by, with that same ominous, black SUV trailing him. Bradley Toney - the disturbed, now probably incacerated adopted son of a mobster - was waiting with me that day. We waved to him and he smiled, and waved back.

It goes without saying that Mike Tyson is a convicted rapist, a tax-evader, and a violent, destructive man with cannibalistic, animal-like tendencies. His life could almost be viewed as a metaphorical context for the fine line between man and beast.

But did you know he also has a soft-spot in his heart for addicts, past and current? He sympathizes with communists, especially Tolstoy, and probably would've beaten his wife for him had he asked. He has an absurdist, nihilistic view of the world. And he can use the word "erudite" in a sentence properly, which, grammatically, might actually put him above almost everyone I know.

It just goes to show you that anyone - if they work hard enough, and if they take the right path - can find the Young Manhattanite within them. From the scrappy Brooklyn fighter to the greenhorn silver-spooned suburbanite. It's there for the taking.

Anyway. That's where I'm from* and that's how I got here. I won't bore you with any more details or 1000+ posts, suffice to say I'm already embarrassed. 'Nice to meat each and every one of you. Put my name up on that masthead. I'm not leaving any time soon.



*If you have any more questions about my upbringing, I'll take the David Patterson route of unnecessary disclosure: you might be terrified to know that my father was once outed as Clark County's 17th Highest Water User. He eventually relented to zeroscaping, but probably ten years too late. Fuckit. If you've ever been to the desert, you well know by now that Vegas shouldn't really even be there in the first place.