SCENES FROM THE STRIP: Many of the casinos in Las Vegas have brassy neon pretenses fronting their establishments. Here are three, Paris (top), New York, New York (middle) and Excalibur (bottom).
CSI: Los Wages
I left St. George for Sin City, and all I got left is this lousy T-shirt … Kidding! More or less.
I sped through the desert, anxious to catch Las Vegas Fever, or at least enjoy the light show. Here’s what I found:
I took a room at a seedy motel just across the strip from Mandalay Bay. With my travel budget about to take a huge hit for a new truck transmission, seedy was good, and affordable. Since it was just about dinnertime, I took a nap, wanting to hit The Strip at its peak – around midnight.
I took to the streets and began my trek north, from Mandalay Bay and the Luxor all the way to the Stardust. Up one side of the Strip and down the other, this journey would take four hours and a bundle of patience, because there are a lot of drunken fools parading around this street after dark.
Las Vegas is surely different from the Grand Canyon, close by location, but totally contradictory in character. Yet Vegas is another essential American experience. This one, however, at least on the streets, seems almost exclusively the province of Americans. Maybe it’s different in the high-roller suites, but on The Strip it seems to be mostly the “dess and dontz” type of guys and their girls. There are a few Asians and, of course, the many Mexicans passing out street flyers, but there’s little else in the way of foreign flavor this night.
Now it’s True Confession Time: I’ve gambled before. Football cards, Super Bowl Squares, NCAA pools, in fact, any and all office pools. Breaks up the boredom. Heck, I’ve even won a few times. At one party, a group of us wagered on how long it would take the kitchen sink to drain of water. I may have even played a few hands of low-stakes poker or blackjack with friends. Who hasn’t bet on something, at least once? Short money, a dollar here, a dollar there. It was my cash, I earned it, and I didn’t gamble away the grocery money. Far from it! As long as you know the person who wins, I think a friendly wager’s fine, but only in moderation.
The IRS may not like it, but it’s OK with me.
I had decided beforehand that I could not make my one lifetime stop in Vegas and not try my luck. So, after casing some of the casinos briefly, I chose New York, New York as the place I would drop my bankroll. Or should I say rolls of quarters. Proving what a high-roller I am, wager-wise, I had gathered up all my laundry money and the quarters scattered around my truck -- $19.50 total – and hit the quarter-slots. Got $5.25 back and I re-invested that. Got back 50 cents. Next to nothing! Perfect! Wiped out my stake in about 20 minutes. I couldn’t have paid for a bus ride if I really needed one. Las Vegas luck, just like I pictured it.
As I said before, as long as you know the person who wins the pool or pot, that’s great, lucky them, but I do have a little problem with organized gambling, people just giving away their dough to strangers and shell corporations.
I once again apologize in advance, but here comes another editorial:As you drive into town, you pass that famous sign. Everybody’s seen it at one time or another. It greets you with the words, “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada.” I’ve got an even more fabulous idea: just put a check in the mail to the folks out here, then go on a real vacation.
You’ve all heard the Las Vegas Lies. You may not know it’s a lie, but you’ve all heard at least one.
The whoppers like, “No, no, really! I won … Won big!”
Ho-Ho-Ho! Sure you did.
Or “Hey, no big deal, I broke even!” That’s always good for a chuckle, a fan favorite at this e-address.
Code phrases heard like “Well, at least, I had fun,” really mean that person lost, but somehow they can’t wait to go back to work, hustle, scrimp and save. Then – finally! - it’s back out to Vegas (or its local equivalent) in a couple of weeks, or maybe it’s even a long few months, to give it another shot.
Like my all-time favorite band Steely Dan reminds us in the chorus of their 1972 hit, an ode to the southwestern desert, “Do It Again”:
Now you swear and kick and beg us
That you're not a gamblin' man
Then you find you're back in Vegas
With a handle in your hand
Your black cards can make you money
So you hide them when you're able
In the land of milk and honey
You must put them on the table
Wait. Stop! Wake up, fool … Why don’t you just lease yourself a new Mercedes instead?
There is so much wrong with Las Vegas, I don’t know where to begin. So, of course, let me wade right in …
Why do people just give away their money? And make no mistake, they are just giving it away. The house doesn’t always win but, depending on the game you chose to eventually lose at, the percentages favor it by a large margin.
There’s one for you … And here’s six for us.If the numbers weren’t in the house’s corner, this town would fold up. It would have to. No one would pay these electric bills if it weren’t for the rubes coming in on the next shuttle bus.
Before Indian casinos began to multiply like rabbits, people had to come to Vegas to essentially donate their savings to The Mob and their excellent accountants. Maybe they weren’t all mobsters, but at very best, they were complete strangers who wanted your life savings, not your life story.
As long as Dino or Frank, or Sammy was crooning at a cocktail corner somewhere on the strip, these bust-out joints seemed like a barrel of laughs. Cool cats, hip town, Daddy-O…
You want to rub elbows with the fabulous, maybe send a drink over to someone who is authentically famous? Good luck finding them here. Nowadays, the swells in this crowd are famous mostly for … being famous -- certainly not due to any toil and talent.
(The vapidity of the new Vegas celebrity is stunning. The Hilton Sisters? Wilmer Valderrama? OK, so Fez was funny on That ‘70s Show, but just who is Brandon Davis anyway? I’ve heard his family has billions from oil, but if you click on Entertainment Tonight or Access Hollywood you’ll see this guy stomping around like he’s the new Charlie Bronson. Can’t somebody get this clown a WB pilot. No? Please … Give him something to do, anything, besides keeping that huge chip balanced on his shoulder.
This just in! This just in!
I've figured out what all these folks do when they’re not getting comped in Vegas or marrying one another just because it’s a long weekend: They all hate ex-Disney diva Lindsay Lohan! Or wait, maybe now it’s Scarlett Johansson? I don’t know? I’ll have to check the tabloids. Sometimes the tilt-a-whirl of feckless celebrity spins so fast, I get dizzy … confused …
And back to the guy who played Fez for one last quick second: he’s hip-deep in typecasting hell. He never has to pick up a check here in Vegas -- at least for now, but also he may never work in Hollywood again. Henry Winkler probably got better offers and it took him decades to mount a semi-comeback in front of the camera. The Fez? The Fonz? These recycled characters are all the same come laundry day, but Hollywood’s seemingly three-decades-long writers’ cramp is a discussion for another time.)
You want to act like a big wheel! A high roller! You came to the right place. What’s not to like? Let’s start with the fact that the verb is “act.” Places like this have nothing to do with real life ... and they haven’t since Bugsy Seigal was a boyo!
The authentic Rat Packers, along with their gangland connections (at least to the naked eye), are all gone now and with them went any real glamour. Instead today it’s garish neon, and somel caring, personable shell corporations waiting to rake in your bucks. And every act advertised on the entertainment billboards here seems to me to be the second coming of Norman Fell (except for Carrot Top, who looks like … well, Carrot Top. At least I’ve heard of him, but I wish I hadn’t!).
Who is Danny Gans anyway? Rita Rudner? … Anyone? You’ll get a gold star on your forehead if you can identify either one (Billboards around town call each “Entertainer of the Year!” To me, there’s only room for one such person to claim that, but this is Vegas, and rules here are, as you well know, for suckers.)
I’ve got a new motto for the buckets-full of billboards around town. Try this: “Las Vegas … Where old game-show hosts go to bore you.” Whataya think?
Entertaining here? … Not so much.
OK, OK, you say, Wayne Newton’s still headlining at the Flamingo, and Celine Dion’s got a lifetime lease across the Strip at Caesars. Well, Newton I’d see, just for some Catskills schmaltz (wonder if he still hits the high notes?), but, personally, I’d rather be given the flu than be given tickets to see Celene Dion. And the boxing? That’s supposed by a draw? Is there even a heavyweight division anymore?
Anyway, let’s step back outside the metaphorical velvet ropes penning in those privileged phonies pining for publicity and sink back down into the street-level gaming rooms and sports books.
A favorite phrase you often heard repeated by the delusional, or by those in denial (before spots like Foxwoods opened), was, “Vegas is like having a license to print money.”Yeah, right it is! For the house. Basically, when push becomes shove, this place is all about the Benjamins. Your Benjamins.
I’ve got another new motto. Instead of the oh-so-trendy “What happens in Vegas … Stays in Vegas!” how about, “What stays in Vegas? … Your money!”
Why bother running a printing press, when over a million fools a week are going to come to your casinos and pony up their hard-gained cash as if it was a sacred offering upon the alter of ancient pagan god. People would get more out of it if they went back in time and burnt their billfolds with those cavemen. At least the fire might take that slight chill out of the night desert air.
(Oh, hey, it’s not all bad news. With the help of Native American tribes, spots like Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun are springing up in almost every region, so now you don’t have to travel so far. You can throw your money into a great, big proverbial tribal toilet and give it a flush.)
It’s amazing! The suckers around here come in all sizes, shapes, shades and seasons of life:
It’s three a.m., and little old ladies litter the quarter-slots areas, shoveling coins into the hungry machines as if some hugs and kisses from the grandkids are going to pour into that coin tray.
Honeymooning couples sit in silence, stone-faced, at the $5 blackjack tables as the pit boss signals for a new dealer. You can tell that they’ve seen this move before. The relief guy puts a couple of new decks into the card shoe and then just vacuums up all their cash up off the felt as if his hands were manufactured by Hoover. But, hey, at least their drinks were free. (Weak … But free. I’m not so sure either one is such a good thing.)
Around the craps tables, you couldn’t cut the tension with a knife as some mook blows on the dice for luck, then shouts “Six, baby, six!” The crowd roars in anticipation. He tosses the bones and … Four times out of five the next sound you hear is a collective groan, “Ooooowww …”
And don’t even get me started about roulette. Looked cool in all those old movies about Monte Carlo, but you don’t think Cary Grant was for one second dumb enough to ever dip a dollar into any one of these whirling vortexes after the crew struck the sets. Didn’t think so.
Don’t act surprised, Dean Martin didn’t even drink! The publicity-driven pandemonium is all a show out here. In truth, it’s a stone-cold business. The rest is just window-dressing ...
Which brings me to Texas Hold-‘Em -- poker at the peak of its popularity. Great TV!
Honestly, it has drama and excitement in a short-form TV format. The camera loves it and America seems to be coming along for the ride.
The cards whip around the table and then the dealer flips over his single contribution, sealing the opening gambits of each around the table. Quickly now, you can snatch a sneak peek at the players’ two-card hands through the hidden lens.
Some fold up their cards, others ante up.
There are two keys to a player’s presentation: the math and the makeup. Not just the poker faces but the facial facades these folks build up, the affectations of some: got to love the guys with the hats and the sunglasses.
Can’t be long now before the first guy shows up with a fake beard and mustache, or the first woman disguised as a man. If Texas Hold-‘Em gets any bigger on cable, these folks will be stylin’ like the wrestlers.
Most of the women players flirt around the table, which is obviously better than any disguise. Almost to a man, those who flirt back soon find a soft seat on the sofa in the Losers Lounge.
Now comes the flop, with three more cards added to the mix …
Timidly, a few fold up their tents and sit back to watch. But some chips always tumble into the pot.
The pressure swells. The river card is revealed …
To get to the top, it takes a keen eye for the equations and the ability to play against the percentages, but the true barometer of a champion is who has the sheer guts to it take a possibly fatal-to-your fortune plunge in a one-on-one face-off when all the figures fail.
Finally, there is the instant glory and gratification for the victor counterbalanced by the disappointment of the vanquished. (Some who lose drop their disguises, if you will. It’s kind of like that vintage game show To Tell The Truth in that respect.)
Everyone wants to be a winner. And you can love ‘em or hate ‘em, but there isn’t anyone who hasn’t felt the sting of defeat sometime in life, and nobody likes it. Deep down inside, it’s that fear which hooks you.
And it only takes a couple of minutes from shuffle to showdown. Like I say … Greeeeeat TV! But in real life, for every math genius with flair like a Chris Moneymaker, there are a million Mike Moneylosers and maybe a handful of Bill Breakevens.
Great on TV, but not so great in person. Still in Vegas, it sure seems like there’s a lot of folks going “All in!”
Hey, it’s your money. Go ahead. Waste it any way you like. And the tax receipts do go into the state coffers, so at least the pols get to fritter away another portion of your cash too, like most of the money they take from us.
(No matter what, in all endeavors, however foolish, we’re always partners by percentage with the government. We give, the state takes and then it takes some more, just like Vegas – but without the showgirls.)
Oh yeah! It’s Vegas, baby! Everybody wins! Oh yeah …
It’s midday now. I’m cruising around, taking a last look at the city that hardly ever pans out. The thermometer at the Wells Fargo on the strip reads 106. But I got an even hotter bet for you … Care to wager the percentage of people at the row of ATMs inside that bank making deposits versus those making withdrawals. No? Awww, that’s a pot I’m sure I can win here.
In daylight, Los Wages looks like any other tired old city, nothing special. It’s struggling to renew itself, with construction cranes everywhere (the Big Apple, Camelot, Paris and the Great Pyramids have already being parodied here, so, with the Chinese buying American likes kids in a candy store, can a little Great Wall be far behind?)
There’s hustle, there’s bustle, there’s jaywalkers and traffic jams. Taxis idling. Fire trucks racing around corners. Lots of red eyes, coffee consumed as if it were a magician’s elixir. Lines mount at the drive-thru under the Golden Arches. No lavish lunches today. Losers gotta eat too. Need your strength if you going to mount a comeback, get back your stake. Hey, it always sundown somewhere in this town. Let the good times roll … Oh yeah! It’s Vegas baby … Vegas!
The casino life? Wrecks families, ruins lives, makes a lot of good people go bad, makes a lot of bad people look good. You can have it.
Me? This place? I’ll take a trip to the Hoover Dam any day …
For more on Las Vegas, don’t ask me. I’ve got nothing good to say.
First Some Fire, Then WaterThe night in Las Vegas was the sandwich filling between two trips: the first through the incredible Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada, which at Tom and Linda’s suggestion I stopped at, and also an afternoon spent checking out the Hoover Dam. Details to follow in the next post …
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