Mr. Las Vegas Has a Bad Knee

This collection of essays, often told with the wisdom and perspective of a writer looking back, chronicles in vivid detail the heroes, heels, and cultural spasms of an endlessly fascinating frontier. Smith hits the road with marginalized astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon, and dives into the middle of a corporate and existential crisis at Sea World, where friendly mascot Shamu had just drowned its trainer. He tests open water swimming with a Southern California woman who eventually swam to Antarctica. He exposes the huckster behind the worldwide Whaling Wall fraud, tours L.A. with a tireless band of Japanese honeymooners, visits the factory where the world’s finest fake rocks are made, and retrieves balls for the seventysomething podiatrist who holds the world record for basketball freethrow shooting.