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2009 Bikini Parade on The Las Vegas Strip

2009 Bikini Parade on The Las Vegas Strip

It probably goes without saying, but Vegas-based publications are highly dependent upon local casino ad revenue.  This is a one-industry town, and unless you want to hemorrhage cash year-after-year-after-year, you have two choices:

1. Kiss the beanbag
2. Write for someone who doesn’t depend on local casino advertising dollars

For the last couple of years, I have mostly done the second.

It’s not that I can’t “write mainstream”.  I can and I have.  I’ve penned “mainstream” articles in a variety of places, both online and in print, for close to 20 years.  VegasRex is an (obvious) pseudonym which allows me to write milquetoast bullshit elsewhere without anyone making the connection, but I don’t really enjoy doing so.  Corporate media can be extremely frustrating.  You can write a 2,000 word masterpiece, only to have it stricken because it is too controversial.  Hell, I once got bounced from a New York paper by referring to Barbara Streisand as a “carpetbagger”.

She came to Brooklyn to stump for David Dinkins during the ’93 elections (or “erections” as they’re known in Japan), and I wondered aloud why any New York resident would listen to an elitist who lived 3,000 miles away in Malibu, California.  I was read the riot act … “we hold Ms. Streisand in very high esteem at this publication!”, and was told to rewrite it (which I did not do).  Barbara was not even an advertiser.  Sony bought lots of ads, however, and Sony owned Columbia and, well … who knows why they were really so gung-ho about the lady.  Such is the state of corporate media, though.

Shortly after moving to Las Vegas, I started my own “blog”, and became somewhat of a Vegas Internet writer.

For over three years, I blogged relentlessly, posted more photos and videos than I’ve bothered counting (it’s certainly in the thousands), and for what?

Well, I didn’t do it for money, that’s for damn sure.

You know this because I didn’t make any.  Not only did I not make any, but it cost me a lot of money to keep the thing going.  For three solid years I criss-crossed the valley, bought cameras, bought tickets, burned cash, paid for servers, spent god knows how much time “blogging”, and each month I lost more and more money.

At the absolute peak of “blog” prosperity, at the peak of Las Vegas’ popularity, when ad revenue and affiliate programs were flowing, I did what few other bloggers did.  I left all of that money on the table.  Hell, there was a buyout offer for my own site back in 2007 which I politely declined.  My decisions seemed very odd to some people, but in reality, I just did what I had always done when I started something new.

For instance, it’s like starting a band.  In the early days, you’re happy just to be heard.  You are more than willing to print up your own fliers, rent your own space, and clean up after the gig.  During this period, it’s really just about the music, and you resent any notion that you are doing it for the money.  The first few times you do make a couple of bucks, you actually feel guilty and you start questioning your own integrity.  After all, now that you are making a couple of dollars for each show … what separates you from the fucking Backstreet Boys?  I mean, besides the legions of female fans and worldwide fame.

For a long time, I resisted even putting dopey Google Ads on my site.  The way I saw it, I had not earned it.  Until I had a couple of years and a fairly large catalog of content under my name, booking my own gigs was the right thing to do.  You’ve got to bust your ass and pay your dues before you should even think about trying to break even.  You need to get boo’ed off the stage and hit in the head with a couple of beer bottles until you’re even remotely legitimate.

Sadly, most people these days try to skip right over this step.  They register a domain and cut-and-paste press releases and “special deals” as blog posts.  They are generally content to let the record company write their songs.  If not all of their songs, at least half of their songs.  If given the choice of being the next Fugazi or the next Ke$ha, most people seem more than happy to choose the latter.  What can I tell you, it’s a ringtone generation.

It’s because of this that I don’t buy the RIAA’s position that people will stop making music if file sharing continues unabated.  To the contrary, music would not only continue, but it would probably get better.  If there were no money to be made in music, musicians would continue making music … it is the posers who would stop.  Sure, the musicians would have to work at Starbucks while they made the music, but I’ve never heard a real musician say “I’m not going to write this song because nobody’s going to pay me for it.”  If they did say that, then chances are it wouldn’t be a very good song anyway.  It certainly would not be a genuine, honest, heartfelt song.

While blogging and music don’t seem to have much in common, it’s really the only other creative pursuit with which I can relate, and most creative endeavors do have some similarities.

Painters, poets, musicians, writers, magicians, comedians, photographers … these are all people who relentlessly produce something that comes from within themselves, from their own perspectives.  They create something that did not exist before they made it.  Most creative people can move between different artistic pursuits quite easily (some of the best poets are musicians, and some of the best writers are comedians).  Be it a photograph of a flower, a sketch of a new cartoon figure, or a new joke that makes people laugh … these people create for the sake of creating, and the vast majority of them would do it in a complete vacuum.  With or without an audience, with or without a dollar.

Some people are able to commercialize on their own perspective, and some never do.

Fortunately, I have an agent.  I have had one for a long time.  This individual represents me in matters completely unrelated to blogging, yet this person was able to convince me to take a blogging gig.  They put it all together and hashed out the details (I never get involved with the business aspect of anything), and it was set.

At the end of 2008, I was finally signed to CasinoGuide for a regular column and there was a minor outcry.  I got one email after another from people accusing me of being a tool, a sell-out, and Osama Bin Laden’s evil twin.  For a few weeks, I felt bad.  I mean, maybe they were right.  I had only been “VegasRex” for a few years.  Who in the hell was I to blog about Las Vegas on a more formal basis?  Surely there were bigger and better unsigned bands out there who had yet to reach their full potential.  It happens all the time.  Look at the Screaming Trees.  One of their members now delivers newspapers for a living while “Soulja Boy” releases three albums in as many years.  The lead singer for Green River and Mudhoney now works in Sub-Pop’s warehouse for Christ’s sake.

Life’s not fair, but I knew one thing … I didn’t want to be Soulja Boy.

I took some of the initial hate mails to heart, but after getting maybe the 30th flame, I came to a conclusion, and that conclusion was:

Fuck you.

I earned it.

You guys had three years to hit me in the head with beer bottles and boo me off the stage, and believe me … you did.  After you were done abusing me and calling me all kinds of unflattering things, I came back for more.  And more.  That’s what real (anything)’s do, and if I was in it soley for the money, I would have been gone a long time ago.  I kept going, though, and as bad as you insisted that I was … you bastards had no qualms about sticking me with ever-increasing bandwidth bills.  It was not reasonable to ask me to rent the venue where you pelted me forever.  For Christ’s sake, even Bikini Kill sold records.

DIY is a great ethic (this is how I run my forums) but it just doesn’t work for blogs.  You eventually have to find a label.

And so I did.

That label was CasinoGuide and I’ve been with these guys for almost 2 years.  Although it may sound like I am kissing ass, the people have all been great.  From Day 1, they’ve always “gotten” who I am and what I do, and they embraced it without fear.  In this day and age, that kind of courage is pretty rare.

It is, therefore, with some sadness that I announce my departure from CasinoGuide.

Companies move around, restructure, consolidate, and just generally do what companies do.  It’s neither good nor bad, it just is.

Now, before you break out the champagne, I urge you to exercise some restraint.

In July of 2010 (only a few short days from now), I will begin writing for a new venue.  It is called CasinoTop10, and it too is an online gaming portal.  For the reasons stated above, it’s a good fit.

Anyway, I would like to thank CasinoGuide for a very enjoyable run.  It has been great working with them over the past couple of years.

I wish them all the best, and I hope to see the rest of you over at CasinoTop10.

Crank That Soulja Boy.

Excerpt:

“Swell of discontent: A large share of locals, many jobless and underwater, pining for greener pastures away from the recession-ravaged area, study finds

During Las Vegas‚ boom years, plentiful jobs were enough to keep the masses moving here.

Now that the boom has gone bust, a new survey by UNLV researchers suggests a large share of valley residents see little reason to stay.

The Las Vegas Metropolitan Area Social Survey found 40 percent of locals want to leave the state.

The results are an indication of tough times, said Robert Futrell, a UNLV sociologist who led the study paid for by the university and the Southern Nevada Regional Planning Coalition.

Most Las Vegans, it seems, talk about moving at some point. The transient nature of the area ‚ only 8 percent of us were born here ‚certainly contributes to that. But with Southern Nevada‚ economy bumping along the bottom, shedding jobs as it goes, more might be thinking those thoughts.

It seems some people would want to leave because jobs are unavailable and jobs were such a large force in drawing people here, Futrell said.”

This “study” is somewhat intriguing.

Leaving Las Vegas Sign

With more than 80% of Las Vegas homeowners currently upside-down in their mortgages, it surprises me that the researchers came to such a low conclusion.

Of the people with whom I am personally acquainted here in town, less than half of them intend to stay here for the rest of their lives.

In my experience, those who are most content in Las Vegas fall into the following three groups:

1. Retired People
2. Unskilled workers earning over $100,000 per year
3. Illegal Aliens
4. Unintelligent People

The first group is probably not surprising.  Las Vegas is actually an “okay” town in which to reside if your income is not dependent upon the local economy.  Compared with other large cities, Las Vegas is incredibly affordable and your fixed income will go further here than in other cottonhead enclaves like, say, Miami.  Given the dreadful nature of Las Vegas healthcare, retiring here will probably shed at least a couple of years from the average retiree life expectancy, but the cheap buffets and lack of natural disasters more than compensate for that.

The second group of people who like it here is probably not a large surprise either.  Under the right circumstances, Las Vegas can be an unskilled worker’s paradise.  There are few other places on earth where high school dropouts can make six figures (especially if they are attractive females).

Of course, the third group is self-explanatory.  As bad as Las Vegas is, it’s still marginally better than Mexico, although the gap is closing.

The fourth group is one that will be touched upon later, but it is my experience that non-thinkers and “don’t worry be happy” types love this place.

Now, a question I get asked quite frequently is “How long are you going to stay in Las Vegas?”

Frankly, this is a very tough question for me to answer.

While I like many things about Vegas, and I have a few things keeping me here, not a day goes by when I don’t fantasize about leaving.  Hell, sometimes it’s the first thing that crosses my mind when I wake up in the morning, and the last thing I think about when I go to bed at night.  This feeling is especially prevalent between the months of May and September.

I find Las Vegas to be a very difficult town in which to live, but my reasons for discontent are very different from those of most other disaffected Las Vegans.

Personally, I am not upside-down in a home.  Hell, now that the market has imploded, I am actually considering buying another home here.  From an economic standpoint, Las Vegas is actually beneficial to me, even during a recession.  As someone who is largely an interstate telecommuter, I do not depend on the local economy, and housing here is still remarkably cheap for a city of 2 million people.  In large part, this is why I am able to call it like I see it.

People often say things like “hey Rex, you should promote the city in a more positive light and be nicer to tourists because they pay for your blah blah blah”, but this is largely nonsense.  I want Las Vegas to succeed because I still like the idea of Las Vegas (which is why I moved here), and tourism is a large factor in this happening, but the success or failure of our local casinos has no major direct impact on me.  If anything, the more hip Vegas becomes, the more expensive things here become … so one could make the argument that increased tourism is actually inverse to my own personal interests.  I’m not a greedy dick, however, I very desperately want to see the city flourish, but the notion that I should kiss tourist scrotum for my own personal gain is faulty logic.

“But, but, but, but, but, but, but Rex … you don’t have a state income tax, and tourists make that possible!”

This brings me to my next point in which the above statement will, ironically, be answered.

I really think I could make this town my permanent home were it not for a couple of issues, and the biggest issue of them all is:

The weather.

HeyZeus knows that I’ve tried to adapt.  I bought a rain machine, I’ve blocked all light from my windows, I’ve refused to go outdoors for weeks.  Some of these things help, but they are very temporary and I am sick and tired of running away from the sun like a goddamn vampire.  For genetic reasons which are completely out of my control, I am more calm, focused, less depressed, and clear-headed when it is raining.  The sunnier and drier it gets, the more depressed, agitated, and dysphoric I feel.  This is just a fact, and it is something that I cannot change.

In addition to the above drawbacks of the heat, I can also feel myself getting “dumber” here.  It’s very hard to explain, but I believe it to be true.  Lest you think this is all just in my head, I am convinced that available evidence supports my theory.

For instance, try to think of a third-world country near the equator.  You will have no problem.  A high percentage of countries near the equator are third-world nations.

Now, try to think of a third-world country above, say, the 35th parallel.  The pickings become slimmer, and the further north you go, the generally more advanced, more educated, and less violent the nations become.  Canada, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, the Netherlands, etc.

In my opinion, it is no accident that civilizations closer to the equator tend to be less technologically and intellectually advanced than those further north.  Scorching hot weather is just not conducive to thinking.

Even within the USA, there are high vairabilities of intelligence between places such as say, Boston and Phoenix.

In my five or so years of experience living here, and travelling to other parts of the desert Southwest, I have come to the conclusion that people in the desert are dumb.  Really, really dumb.  You can just drive around and see it by the look on their faces.  ”Duhhhhhhhhh.”  They speak slowly, have blank expressions, and seem pathologically obsessed with automotive tire rims.

The correlation between low IQ’s and the high heat is simply too widespread to be coincidence.  Whenever someone tells me that they “love the weather here”, I don’t argue with them, I just politely nod while making a mental notation that the person is probably stupid.  I am convinced that excessive heat slows neuronal activity, and I am concerned that it is irreversible.

“Rex, I think that you are exaggerating.  Is there any way that I can test your ‘Stupid Desert’ hypothesis myself?”

Yes.  Yes there is.

Craigslist.

Almost every town has one, and a cursory viewing of the ads in any given town is actually quite revealing.

For instance, this was a real ad recently on the Las Vegas list:

IM SELLIN MY 1993 INTEGRA GS 4D. 5SPEEDS. IM SELLIN IT BECAUSE I DONT REALLY NEED DAT CAR ANYMORE
THE ONLY PROBLEM WITH IT IS DAT 3RD GEAR DONT GRAVES BUT THE REST WORKS JUST FINE.
IF INTERESTED AND WANT TO SEE THE CAR CALL JOSE AT 702)638-xxxx …….SERIOUS BUYERS……

I don’t want to live amongst these people.  These are not my people.  I do not know them.  I do not understand them.  I am every bit as much an alien to these creatures as E.T. was to Elliott.  I desperately want to go back to my own planet.  A planet where it rains and people speak my language.  I want to move north, and I want to move near the water.

It is for this reason that I always keep a close eye on the Aberdeen, Washington housing market.

Why Aberdeen?

Because at 83 inches per year, it is the rainiest city in the USA.  To put this into perspective, Las Vegas gets 4 inches of rain per year.  Four.  As in, less-than-the-amount-of-toes-on-your-right-foot four.

While Aberdeen is a small town, it is only 45 minutes from Olympia, and two hours from both Seattle and Portland.

Oh, and by the way … Washington State has no personal income tax.  Apparently, Las Vegas tourists are so valuable that their influence reaches all the way to the Canadian border. (See, I told you that an answer would come.)

Last, but not least, in addition to the weather and the lack of intelligence, my biggest gripe with this town is the evil, dishonest, phony people that live here:

Take, for instance, this excerpt from the same article in the Las Vegas Sun:

County Commissioner Susan Brager, chairwoman of the Regional Planning Coalition, said she is surprised by the survey’s results. “Most people I talk to really love it here,” said Brager, who works as a real estate agent.

See?

This comment was evil, dishonest, and phony all in the same damn sentence, yet this woman, Susan Brager, is among our intellectual elite.  She’s a large part of the reason that 80% of valley residents are upside-down in their mortgages, yet, she’s still a County Commissioner.

God help us.

In any event, while Las Vegas is my home now … the answer to the question is “not only no, but hell no” … I do not intend to live here for the rest of my life.  Had I been polled by the UNLV researchers, I would have put myself in the “want out” category, although I would have done so for wholly dissimilar reasons than the majority of the other respondents.

Whether I effectuate this escape in one year or twenty years remains to be seen, but the knowledge that I will not be here forever is the only thing that keeps me from painting my wall with grey matter courtesy of the business end of a shotgun placed strategically in my mouth.

I’m sorry if this illustration seems a bit harsh, but I would appreciate your understanding.

Today is May 10th, and God is about to light the pilot light.

It’s all downhill from here.

If you name the vice, chances are good that I engaged in it and pushed it as far as it would go.  It sounds eye-rollingly cliche’, but there really was a collective shock by everyone I knew when I turned 30 years old.  I think people had an under/over pool on me somewhere around 26 years old, and the big three oh was akin to betting on the Redskins to go undefeated for an entire season.

About seven years ago, all of this caught up to me when my heart began beating wildly out of rhythm … at which point I lost consciousness and collapsed.  I refused to get a pacemaker, and was instead given medication to control my heart rate and was ordered to slow down lest I abruptly die.

Even though I have slowed down substantially in recent years (I’ve decreased my activity level by about 99%), it still has not been uncommon for 2-3 months to pass before I get a full 6 hours of contiguous sleep.  Occasionally, this leads to minor arrhythmias, at which point I take some meds to sleep and wake up the next morning more or less back to normal.

There’s no free lunch in life.  Everybody pays eventually.  When I was 22, I could have bought a car, worn a tie, sat behind a desk, gossiped around the water cooler, bought a gym membership, shopped at Walmart, and cheered on my favorite team on the weekends.  I’d certainly be much better off than I am now.  Who knows, I might even be happy.

Anyway, the only time the “take meds and rest” cure doesn’t work is when I have a particularly strong virus.  A really bad cold, flu, or unidentified tourist plague can really exacerbate things.  My heart will race too fast or erratically.  This is what happened last weekend.  I spiked a fever to 104, couldn’t keep medication in my stomach, and things got progressively worse.

I hate to disappoint the conspiracy theorists who believed that I went down banging a whore or leading a blogger rebellion down Las Vegas Boulevard, but the truth is never as glamorous as reality.

Fortunately, last weekend, my mother-in-law was staying with us.  That may be the very last time you ever see me type that sentence.

My mother-in-law is a small Asian lady, and not only small by Asian standards, but small by human standards.  She’s maybe 4’10″ and somewhere in the neighborhood of 90lbs.  She’s a very nice woman, but she tends to get annoyed with me.  Especially when I greet her at the airport by throwing my arms around her and exclaiming “owwww me so hawwwwny, me ruv you wrong time!”.  For some reason, that line just never gets old for me.

Aside from being a decent human being, the little kimchi-muncher also comes in handy because she is a doctor.  She readily concedes that Las Vegas is a black hole of medical care, and thus she brings a plethora of gadgets and medical devices to do what she can whenever she comes to town.  The only thing she doesn’t bring with her is large ampoules of Dilaudid, which remains a point of contention between the two of us.  Frankly, I don’t see the point of being a doctor if you don’t make liberal use of the world’s pharmaceutical-grade opiate supply, but that’s just me.

I digress.

At some point last weekend, my mother-in-law decided that I needed to go to the ER.  I had passed out a couple of times, and she was concerned by my high temperature and rapid pulse.  I protested, but she was fairly adamant.

It was very late, and I didn’t want everyone to have to be awakened for this little endeavor.  Besides, I was alert at this point and could walk small distances.  It was decided that just the two of us would go, and others would come later if I was admitted.  I was helped to the car, and the dog-eater and I hit the road.  This is where things went downhill fast.

While on our way to the hospital, I lost consciousness.  When I came to, Kristi Yamaguchi was in a bit of a panic.  She was lost, and she was worried that I was rapidly deteriorating.

She spotted a police car driving a block in front of us, and told me that she was going to speed up to get his attention.

“No!” I plead with her.  I don’t remember the exact words that followed, but she later told me that I said “the police will not help us, they will hurt us”.

My mother-in-law is still very naive on many levels.  She was always taught that the police were the good guys and she believed this to be true.  She did not understand my behavior at the time.

As it turns out, after looking around, I realized where we were.  We had overshot the ER by about a mile, and I told her that we needed to make a U-turn to get on the correct side of the road.  Fortunately, the street was deserted.  She pulled a 180 degree left turn, and it seemed as though we were clear the rest of the way.

The next thing I remember, red and blue lights lit up our rear window.  Apparently, a police car had been behind us when we made the turn.

“He’ll help us, you will be okay”, I remember my MIL saying.

She pulled over, and … now in tears, opened her car door and began waving for the officer to come to the window.  I remember hearing “get back in the car and put your hands on the steering wheel!” blasting through a loud speaker.  Of course, this was for the officer’s safety.  As heroes, the safety of our police officers is very important.  This is why they get parades on Las Vegas Boulevard. To remind us of how sacred their lives are.

The officer proceeded to yell instructions through the loud speaker, and despite my mother-in-law trying to get him to come to the car, he took quite a long time to arrive at the window.

When he finally walked up and positioned himself beside the car, he yelled at my mother-in-law.

“What do you think you’re doing?  Do you realize that you made an illegal U-turn?”

She began frantically explaining that I  needed to get to the hospital, and asked him if he could help us.

He ignored her pleas, and instead turned his gaze toward me.

“What’s YOUR problem?”, he demanded.

I looked up at him, and I was far from angry at the time.  Even though I was a bit out of it, I actually remember feeling sorry for him.  I mean genuinely sorry.  Here was this man, hand on a gun, aggressive stance, eyes bulging out of his head with an intense-yet-vacant stare.  Something just wasn’t right with him.  It was sad.

He repeatedly asked what “my problem was” in an exceptionally condescending manner, and I just decided to look away and say nothing.  There was no point.  He didn’t care.

Tokyo Rose kept begging for him to escort us to the emergency room, but he kept wanting to address me.

Fearing that he was going to hurt my mother-in-law out of frustration if I didn’t respond, I finally said “I can’t breath very well”, and he quickly replied “why not?!”

“He has an arrhythmia and we need to get to the emergency room!”, said Yoko.

“What is that?!”, the cop shot back.

For the next 3 minutes or so, Lucy Liu tried to define the term for him, but he was clearly lost.  Judging by his dilated pupils and aggressive manner, he seemed determined to harm and harass us.  Given that there were two defenseless people in the vehicle, it was the absolute perfect opportunity.  We were safe prey for the officer.  There was no way we could fight back or pose a threat.  We were both ripe for intimidation.  He kept screaming at me directly, and seemed to get increasingly agitated that I would not comprehensively answer his repeated questions as to “what my problem was”.

Fortunately, I lost consciousness again.

Had I not, I can only assume that I would have been taken to the police station for “disorderly conduct”, “resisting arrest”, “disrespecting a police officer”, or some related charge.  I would also no doubt be dead.

When I came to, we were in front of the ER entrance.

Soon-Yi got out of the driver’s side, came to my door, opened it, grabbed my arms, and put them over her shoulders.  Tears were streaming down her face the entire time.  I looked over, and the officer had parked behind us.  She told me that he had followed us to the hospital.  He did not get out of his car to help her.  Here was a 90lb woman, trying her best to carry someone more than double her size, and a large police officer sat and watched her from behind his windshield.  He did not go inside the hospital.

When I got into the ER, things were not looking good for yours truly and I was quickly taken back.

After I was admitted, my mother-in-law went back to park the car in a permanent space, and the cop was still there.  According to her, he scolded her for taking too long in the emergency room, handed her two tickets, yelled at her some more, and then drove away … looking for more people to protect and serve.

The tickets should raise about $500 for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

I’m sure the latter was not a unique sentiment, so kudos for having the courage to say what many others were surely thinking.  And by courage, I mean “sending an unsigned email from an anonymous email account”.  It must have taken hours to work up the strength to do that.

Can you imagine Rosa Parks in 2010?

From: sweet_mama_chocolate87156@yahoo.com
To: The Montgomery Transit Authority

I’m sick and tired of your discriminatory policies, and I’m not going to take it anymore.  If you don’t let black folks sit at the front of the bus, I’m gonna post all of your email addresses on alt.sex.bestiality and post pictures of your racist drivers on 4chan!”

The Black Panthers would probably coordinate wholly via Twitter, where uprisings would be routinely thwarted by “service unavailable” and “check out our latest deals!” messages.  The 140 character limit would probably also lead to some confusion.

“We are sick and tired of the white devil keeping us down.  If you are with us, fight the power and rally at the intersection of 181st Street and M…”

“Sorry, that last message was too long.  We will be rallying at 181st Street and Market Avenue.  We are mad as hell and will not take it anymore.  Make sure you are there promptly at N…”

It’s a good thing the civil rights movement happened 50 years ago.

Anyway, I have had many inquiries into what exactly happened, so I will try to describe the sequence of events that led to my hospitalization, to the best of my recollection.

I should have known something was about to go down when I got up on Saturday morning and noticed that the national terror threat level was “yellow”.  We had only been at this level since August 12, 2005, and the specificity of this warning made the hair on my neck stand up, while simultaneously making me far more aware of my surroundings.

Until we are back down to threat level “green”, no suspicious activity is going to go unscrutinized by yours truly.  None.

Do you hear that Osama?

NONE!

With this heightened “yellow” alert in mind, I drove down Las Vegas Boulevard on Saturday night looking for anything out-of-sorts that may have posed a threat to America and its precious freedom liberty way of life.

When I got to the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana, I saw what the terror level was referring to.

Standing directly in front of the Excalibur Hotel, I saw a suspicious woman.  She was white, in her late 40′s, and she had on a Wisconsin Badgers sweatshirt.

“That’s odd, nobody likes Wisconsin”, I remember thinking, at which point the woman reached into her purse, and pulled out a small device about 4″ wide and 3″ tall.

I craned my neck to get a better look, and I realized what she had retrieved from her purse.  It was a camera.

Of course, this could only mean one thing.

Al-Qaeda.

I was witnessing first hand an attack unfold on American soil.

I immediately sprang into action.

While the car was still moving, I flung the passenger door open, and somersaulted to where the woman was standing.  Just as she began depressing the shutter, I tackled her, pinned her to the ground, and yelled “Not this time Saddam!”

Of course, she resisted, but I took this as further evidence of her guilt.

“Stop resisting my citizen’s arrest, or I will slap a disorderly conduct charge on your ass!”, I shouted.

I began demanding to see the photos she had taken with her camera, but she repeatedly refused.

“What do you have to hide?” I demanded.

I soon regretted asking this question, because what came next was worse than anything I could have imagined.

The camera had just been a decoy.  As I was concentrating on trying to delete her evil pictures, the woman pulled an aerosol canister out of her purse.  The can had a label that read “If you hate America’s freedoms, aim and press”.

This was it.  The weapon of mass destruction I had heard about.

Sweet mother of God!  I could not let a biological holocaust occur at the corner of LVB and Trop.

I swung with all of my might, trying to knock the can out of her hand, but I was too late.  The WMD went off directly in my face.  It smelled like the flatulence of a thousand camels, and I immediately began having visions of 42 virgins standing in line at the Apple Store waiting for the release of the iPad.  My senses were overwhelmed with pure evil, and I quickly lost consciousness.

The next thing I remember is waking up in the emergency room of UMC.  Upon gaining consciousness, the staff at the hospital erupted in applause.  They had learned of my efforts to eradicate the terror that is photography, and I was given copious amounts of intravenous morphine as a reward, while simultaneously being treated for exposure to anti-American weapons of mass destruction.

Even though I made a herculean effort to save Las Vegas, I was not completely successful.

The threat is not over.

Oh no.

No no.

Somewhere out there on the streets of Las Vegas, or possibly in a casino, a middle-aged woman is carrying a camera.

If she is not stopped, she will take another photo, and we all know what that means.

That’s right, a light-based image will be recorded onto some kind of flash storage device, and once that happens, it will be chaos.  Anarchy will reign, nations will fall, and mother nature will rise up and smite mankind with plague and disasters the likes of which we have never before seen.

May God have mercy on our souls.

A Photographer in the Luxor

As this incident has proven beyond ALL doubt … photographers are terrorists.  Every one of them.  Without exception.

As Americans, it is your patriotic duty to get out there and stop the picture-takers.  Wherever they are, you must smoke them out.  If you don’t go to them, make no mistake, they will come to you.

I’ve done all I can do, and the fate of Las Vegas, nay, the fate of mankind as we know it is now in your hands.

Go forth.  Be vigilant.  Be proud.

You’re Americans, and no dadgum camera-wielder is going to take your freedoms away.  These colors don’t run.

Anyway, I’m out of the hospital but not 100% recovered.  I’m not yet fully mobile and I’m medicated, so in the spirit of the average customer service rep, I would like to take this opportunity to remove all blame from myself proactively.

For the next week or so, if I type anything stupid, inaccurate, or non-sensical … or even if I make a typo … don’t blame me, I’m sick.  This applies retroactively to everything I have written in the last 6 years (hey, why not?).

If anything decent happens to make it online, however, that’s all me.  Empowered by the will of my lord and savior Jesus Christ, I courageously fought to overcome adversity and typed through the pain to bring online content to the masses.

One might even call me … a hero.

Your mother certainly does.

“Why do you take so many unflattering pictures of Las Vegas?”

Arco Gas Station in Rexville with The Stratosphere

The Stratospere from Downtown

The Las Vegas Strip from The Arts District

The Las Vegas Strip from The Arts District

In the last few months, I’ve been hit with variations of these two questions on a routine basis.

For some reason, there has been a burgeoning interest in my photographic habits.

Why?  I do not know.  I think some of the questions are rhetorical critiques, but perhaps there is a legitimate question or two buried within the hundred or so queries over the past few months.

The reason I don’t respond to individual emails is because I don’t respond to anything unless I make an effort to put some thought into it.  I’ve never sent an email that says “LOL. Thanks.”  This is why I’m a bad Twitterer.  I’m not brief.  I don’t cut-and-paste responses either.  If I don’t have the time to formulate a thoughtful, complete response, I don’t respond at all.  It is for this reason, I usually address common questions publicly.  I just can’t do it one-by-one.

So, for the first time, I will try to provide at least some insight into my Vegas photography “style”.

When news crews are in Washington, D.C., they often film their reporters standing in front of the White House or the Capitol Building.  This even extends to political cartoons.  They will typically sketch a government landmark somewhere in the backdrop.  This is the primary visual clue to the reader that the setting of the cartoon is in Washington.

When crews are reporting from Los Angeles, they typically have the Hollywood sign visible in the background.  New York reporters will get a Times Square or a Manhattan skyline shot.  Every city has a designated spot where crews congregate to report generic geographically-based stories.  It’s their way of saying “Look, we’re really here!”.

In Las Vegas, that spot is the “Welcome to Las Vegas Sign”.  Every time something happens in Vegas, crews from all over the country trip all over themselves to jockey for location shots in front of the sign.  If there are any weather abnormalities, they go to the sign … if they talk about tourism numbers, they go to the sign … hell, sometimes they go to the sign for no obvious reason at all.  It’s a default location when there is nowhere else to go.

Las Vegas Sign

Las Vegas Sign

For example, late last week I took a trip to Town Square, and when I was getting ready to pass the “Welcome” sign on the way home, I saw a small convoy of news vans parked in front of it.  Thinking the sign had been vandalized again, or that something else serious had happened, I quickly pulled into the parking lot.  As it turns out, absolutely nothing had happened at the sign.  The President was in town, and the news vans thought it would be swell to have the “Welcome” sign as a backdrop while they talked about Obama.

Gee, which Harvard grad came up with that suggestion?

It was just so … original.

“But I did my thesis on originality!”, said the credentialed genius I just insulted.

Creativity and independent thinking has never been a strong suit for the mainstream media, but I do think it would be admirable if they at least tried to carve out their own spot here in town instead of rushing to the exact same place every time a general Vegas story breaks.

Channel 5 could stand in front of the Rio, Channel 3 in front of Vegas Vic, Channel 8 could report from inside Olympic Garden while Amanda Hernandez works the stripper pole … you get the idea.

My own personal “location shot” is the Strat.

Leatherby's and The Stratosphere

The Stratosphere and Fontainebeau from Las Vegas Boulevard

The Las Vegas Strip from The Arts District

Whenever possible, I try to get the Stratosphere somewhere in my shots.  If not The Stratosphere, then some kind of landmark that people might recognize.

The reason for this is perspective.  When I photograph a random shot of a car, house, or building around town … it doesn’t really mean anything to those who don’t live here.  As far as they are concerned, the picture could have been taken in Kansas or Maine.  Without some indication that the photo was taken in Las Vegas, it loses a certain amount of relational perspective.

Twenty years from now when I’m shitting into a bag hanging from my stomach and taking Viagra just to masturbate, and I flip through photos on my iPad (which will still be the scarlet letter of every limp-dicked moron on the planet), I don’t want the photos I took in Seattle to look like the ones I took in DC, which also happen to look like the ones I took in Vegas.  Without a landmark, there is no perspective.

In Las Vegas, my preferred landmark is The Stratosphere.  This tower is part of what makes my photos my own.  I obsessively photograph the structure for a variety of reasons.

Shadow of The Stratosphere over Rexville

The Las Vegas Strip from The Arts District

The Stratophere from First Friday

The Stratosphere from Symphony Park

The Stratosphere from Rexville

The Stratosphere from Rexville

It is a mental comfort blanket.  It’s the first thing I see when I land in Vegas, it’s the first thing I see when I look out the window in the morning, and the last thing I see before I go to bed at night.  It dominates the view from every square foot of my neighborhood.  It’s a gigantic “you live here –>” thumbtack stuck into a life-sized map of the city.  I always know that if I can just get to the Stratosphere, I can get home.  I never need to explain to anyone where I live, or go into convoluted freeway or street directions.  Just take me to that big thing sticking up in 15 miles the distance, and I can take it from there.

The Stratosphere is also ground zero in Las Vegas.  Dead Center.  The city begins at the Strat and radiates out.  Downtown is a mile North, The Strip is a mile South, the freeway and “new” Vegas suburbs are one mile to the west, and the “original” Vegas begins immediately to the east.  Everything South of the Strat is Clark County, and everything North of The Strat is the city.

I can mentally triangulate where I took any given photo in the valley by looking for the Strat, judging its distance, and using the position of the rides as a compass.  If I look at the sky above the Strat, I also have a pretty good idea as to what the neighborhood weather conditions are.  If the tip is obscured by clouds, it’s cold, if the clouds are moving quickly past the tip, it’s windy, if it’s all clear … then it’s a normal Vegas day.

It’s not just visual.  The screams that eminate from the rides at the top all day, every day, have become a neighborhood soundtrack.  Like birds chirping in the rainforest.  If I don’t hear blood curdling screams every three or four minutes, I get nervous.  I look outside to make sure that civilization is still there.  I go to sleep every night listening to “aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”.  As ridiculous as it sounds, it’s become quite comforting.  It’s like Homer Simpson’s “Everything’s Okay Alarm” that blares incessantly until there is a fire … at which point it shuts off.

For these reasons, The Stratosphere is the single object that I photograph most in this town.  It’s the building I most like.

Massage Parlor and The Stratosphere

The Las Vegas Strip from The Arts District

Willy's and The Stratosphere

The Stratophere and Fontainebleau from The Boulevard

As to the “non-glamor” shots that occasionally go up, I don’t think they are any more or less worthy of publication than sweeping vistas from the Foundation Room.

The Las Vegas Strip from The Mandalay Foundation Room

Las Vegas has an almost pathological aversion to reality, but it is not my responsibility to adhere to this unspoken covenant.  Las Vegas pays people $80 Million to perpetuate the myth.  I am not one of those people.

The Vegas I photograph is MY Las Vegas.  They are real things and real scenes I encounter during the course of a normal day.  I don’t stage the shots.  I happen upon them.  This is the truth and this is what’s real.

When I was working in New York, I remember being given a choice of assignments on one particular day.  I could shoot and report the ribbon cutting ceremony of a new rec center opening, replete with the usual cadre of city officials and a major celebrity who provided funding … or I could shoot the NYPD evicting homeless people from a squat near Downtown Brooklyn.  I chose the latter as a female freelancer who got the left-over assignment breathed a sigh of relief.  Even in so called “creative” works, I’ve always had a strong preference for reality over fantasy.

In the last year or so, I have begun eschewing “traditional” shots of Las Vegas.  You know the ones.  The picture postcards.  The artistically framed shot of Caesars Palace, beautiful people doing beautiful things, yet another crisp shot of the Bellagio Fountains dancing in front of the opulent hotel.

Everybody has these shots.  They are not unique anymore, and they do not show people a different perspective on the city.  They show what everyone already thinks we are, and what everyone already expects to see.

For instance, I just went to Google Images and typed in the word “Bellagio Las Vegas”:

Results 1 – 21 of about 561,000 for bellagio las vegas. (0.30 seconds)

That’s right, there are over half a million shots of the hotel … and most of them follow more or less the same theme.  A shot of the front of the exterior with the fountains dancing out front.

At this point in the game, I have no desire to shoot the 561,001st shot.  It’s been done.  Ad-nauseum.

I too, have photographed every property on the Las Vegas Strip.  Over 1 million shots personally.  Probably more than any single individual on the planet.  I’m the only individual I know with photos not only of every casino exterior, but also photos of every casino interior.  Gaming pits, poker rooms, dealers, cocktail waitresses … what I have is pretty complete.

There’s more to the city, though.  Much more.  There are two million people who live in the Valley, and an infinitesimal number of them live in the shiny strip structures.  Las Vegas doesn’t really look like the slick promo pics.  All of our people don’t look like models, and we have at least as much poverty as excess.  I don’t necessarily consider photos of our bums or barbed wire to be insulting or unflattering.  They just are what they are, in the eye of the beholder.

Las Vegas Porn Racks

Las Vegas Graffiti

The Las Vegas Strip from The Arts District

The Las Vegas Strip from The Arts District

The Las Vegas Strip from The Arts District

Sure, stock photos of hotel exteriors and people rolling dice with a cute girl on their arm and a huge smile on their face looks nice, but you can find those at any casino website or any “rah-rah we love Las Vegas, beer, and kittens” site.

I seek out shots of scantily-clad women as much (more than?) the next person, and I like the shiny shit too … but in my opinion, the reality of Las Vegas is just as interesting, if not more interesting, than the fantasy.

Last but not least, if you are one of the people who send an email, and did not receive a response, please don’t take it personally.

Imagine me typing this reply 100 separate times.

It appears that I have won one of the blog categories, and I have an official response.

First, I would like to say that it was an honor just to be nominated, and I would like to acknowledge my worthy opponents by saying …

LOSERS!

How’s my dick taste?

I kid.  Maybe.  I have no idea who I was up against, so if any of them are assholes, then I meant it.

Contrary to popular expectations, I’m not going to do the cliche’d Ed Vedder Grammy “I don’t know what this means, I don’t think it means anything” routine.

It obviously means something.

It means that people, most of whom I do not know, took 2 minutes (or however long it took) out of their day to pencil my name into a ballot, weigh it, put postage on it, and send it off.  One of these days, we’re going to figure out a more efficient means of communication.

I’m not going to slap these people in the face by saying that their time didn’t mean anything.

Instead, for those of you who did vote for me, I offer my sincere and heartfelt “thanks for stiffing me for three years in a row before this you bitch ass motherf*ckers.”

Alright, in all seriousness, I do appreciate it.

I finished reading the results a couple of hours ago, and it looks like locals did pretty well this year, and I think that’s a good thing.

People think I’m a jerk who engages in territorial pissings when I harp on this subject, but I feel like I’m slightly misunderstood.

You see, in my opinion, Las Vegas is a miserable place to live.  This was not as true in 2005, but I think it’s a fair statement now.  Most of the folks here who do not work for the casino industry could probably make far more money and have more opportunities if they picked up and moved out of Las Vegas tomorrow.  Everyone with an ounce of sense has already left, and it takes a certain level of intangible insanity and sadomasochism to stick it out here.

The unemployment rate here is high (and understated due to population shrink), and 80% of people are upside-down on their homes.  Our schools are ranked dead-last in the USA.

We have the worst healthcare in the nation.  Local colonoscopy centers are re-using needles and infecting people with hepatitis, and we have pregnant women being turned away from emergency rooms and giving birth to stillborn babies in their homes.

Crime in Rexville (and many other areas of Vegas) is significantly higher than the national average.  We have thugs with badges patrolling our streets, and our largest newspaper folds like a cheap suit and sells out its readers as the editor declares “First Amendment?  What’s that?”.

People are mean.  I rescued a dog last weekend from a lady who cavalierly dumped a 4 month old puppy out onto the street and told me that she didn’t want it when I tried to return the animal.

Folks here can’t drive worth ass.  It’s been 18 days since I’ve seen a turn signal.  Our transit system is patently laughable, and our local government makes me pine for the integrity of Chicago politics.

The people here are stupid beyond belief.  If I get correct change for a dollar in this town, I drive to Primm and play the lottery because I figure it’s my lucky day.  Finding someone who understands English here is like finding a four leaf fucking clover.

To compound it all, the weather is just awful.  It’s not even remotely hospitable.  Look around at the 5000′ dirt hills.  Even mother nature abandoned the place, and the BLM is trying to remove the few creatures that we have left.  Because of the harsh climate, Las Vegas exists solely at the pleasure and whim of NV Energy, a monopoly which is completely unregulated by our public officials.

When measured by all typical yardsticks of livability, Las Vegas is the worst place in the known solar system to reside.

So, despite the overwhelming negatives, why do people stay here?

I can’t speak for everyone, but there comes a point in time when Las Vegas, for better or worse, just becomes a part of who you are.  When I spend the weekend in New York, Los Angeles, etc … I always press my nose against the glass when the plane begins to descend into McCarran, because I can’t wait to catch a glimpse of the Stratosphere which tells me that I am home.  For this reason, I always make it a point to book a window seat on the right side of the plane whenever possible.  I am not kidding.

Three minutes after I land, I start bitching about the place, but that’s just part of the relationship I have with the town.  I hate it, and it hates me.  I’m not sure this is a completely bad thing, though.  The opposite of love is indifference, and the day I become indifferent about the place … it’s time to go.

Just when I feel I am at the end of my rope with this town, I stop and realize what I am doing.  I am cursing the city as I am walking to the world’s largest bikini parade.  I’m yelling and screaming at drivers on Spring Mountain Rd. because they are delaying my arrival to the Adult Entertainment Expo.  I shout at the heat as I am crossing a pedestrian bridge on my way to play swim-up Blackjack at the Tropicana.  I bitch every time I take a bad beat, not remembering that these same crappy players have been the source of many a free meal.  I cool my temper by plugging quarters into a Sigma Derby machine while watching a goofy cast of drunken characters scream at metallic horses.  I end a day of abject frustration by eating $1 shrimp cocktails (now $1.99) and then I stand in front of a hippie bus to watch a lady belt out Janis Joplin tunes in costume.

It is then that I realize, I am this godforsaken hellhole.  The dichotomy that I think exists …. doesn’t.  We’re both equally as fucked up.  I am Sid, the town is Nancy.  I hold the belt in my teeth while the city holds the nail.

It is because of my own hostile relationship with Las Vegas that I have developed a bit of an “us vs. them” mentality.  Even though I do not know them, I have an odd respect for some of the people who are neck deep in shit with me.  People who, despite the overwhelming negatives of the place, somehow hang on and survive.

The media here is literally collapsing around itself, and any journalist with two neurons inside of their skull should be running away in panic.  Richard Abowitz has skills that could easily land him a mainstream writing job in a far more literate city.  That doesn’t immediately appeal to him, though.  Instead, he stays, starts his own site, reads classic literature, listens to Dylan … and dates porn stars.

Steve Friess is kind of out there.  He has an impressive resume that grants him access to Steve Wynn and Sheldon Adelson, he writes impressively honest articles detailing his own experiences with the local housing collapse, yet he somehow still makes time to let Perez Hilton know that he is “vermin”.

For Christ’s sake, our most instantly recognizable writer wears an eye patch and gets in fights with Criss Angel.

People say I am hostile toward outsiders, but I generally don’t spend much time thinking about them.  I’m far too apathetic.  I could not give a shit less about celebrities, and I just do my own thing.  Our well-known “legitimate” journalists have far more running feuds than I do.  Has anyone not had a nuclear war with Aubrey O’Day yet?

From the blogger with two readers to the “almost famous” … everyone here is pretty screwy, and I mean that in the most endearing way.

They have carved out a niche’ for themselves, have made it work, and even if I disagree with them (which I typically do), I’m glad they are here doing it.

I don’t dislike our visiting journalists, bloggers, and pundits.  I am 99% sure that most of them are stellar individuals.  I haven’t been here very long myself.

It takes balls to move here, though, and takes even bigger stones to stay when the going gets rough or in this case, really rough.  For that reason … be they awards, recognition, revenue, writing gigs, or whatever … I have a strong preference to see the spoils go to those that are here.

If that makes me a bad person then it makes me a bad person, but it’s just my opinion and is nothing personal whatsoever against people who love the city 4 times a year.  Obviously, our valued tourists and promoters are every bit as important to our local economy, if not more so.  Hell, most of the people I hang out with are tourists, and they are all great people.

Except for Jeff Spain.  He’s an asshole.

Anyway, this lengthy screed aside, allow me to return to the original point.

If there is one message, and only one message to be taken from the Trippies awards, it is this:

I’m better than all of you.

Welcome to my little gossip and confessions area of this website. So you’re thinking, “What the hell does she mean by that?!” Well, I am not ALWAYS going to shows and eating at restaurants, behaving myself and reporting about that. There are times when I meet a group of drunk tourists and their antics are just too funny or just too salacious to not write about three thousand words on the scandal.

Pimps are people too, and damned friendly, I might add. He did eventually get a phone call and run out of the place, much to my disappointment.

Sometimes, “glad to meet you!” is a little more friendly than you might imagine in Las Vegas. Are you kidding me? I stepped up for my kiss too! I mean, while he was handing them out for free and all.

Many times people on the internet will schedule to get together in Las Vegas and then party with these strangers like there will never be a good time to be had in Las Vegas ever again. The drinking, the debauchery, the high rolling gambling, and well, usually they are too drunk to remember I’m around. I like to take full advantage of that. I don’t drink and I don’t gamble, but I know how to work a camera and write it all down for your entertainment.

Sometimes a limo is required to drive the party from one casino to another. There was one night the limo was required to drive to the casino directly across the street. Ah, ya gotta love these guys.

Well, it isn’t all sin in Sin City, there are times you can talk people in to doing some fun things to just to amuse me. I don’t think I want to explain what is actually going on here in the photo. Let me just say, I was laughing pretty hard that night.

When I’m done partying with the tourists, there is always time to take in a good show. Or sometimes take in a bad show. I’ll let you know all the gory details and which I liked and which aren’t worth your time. You might not agree with me, but that’s just too damned bad because it’s my blog. If you want to write about shows that suck and say they are good, get your own blog.

My latest kick lately is to actually find a successful, Jewish man over fifty to date. This takes me to many comedy shows. Where else am I going to find him in Vegas? My constant focus of attention for the past two years is Lewis Black. I go to all his shows and usually have to do some major shopping, phone calling, trials and tribulations to get there.

Does he care? No. It seems the answer to that is just plain, “no.” Does he email or call to ask me out? “Fuck No.” I’ve been chasing this guy for so long now, he even recognized me from stage once. At any rate, I usually meet some interesting people along the way when I go to his concerts and I take you with me step by step.

One night I diverted from my normal Lewis Black path and went to this guy’s show. He was one funny kid! And he never hit on me. I love this kid. I get confused when guys half my age hit on me and he never did, so I now love him.

I swore off the young ones. A thirty-year old got royally pissed off about me running around with the twenty-four year old and really, this is all too much for me to keep track of. So I gave up dating anyone under fifty. And now, I don’t date! There isn’t anyone Jewish and over fifty HERE. Yeah, I’ll be at Lewis’s next show. Sittin’ in the front row. Again. Till the end of time.

There’s plenty to see in Las Vegas and I’ll take you with me in a virtual sort of way with videos and photos of the free shows and things to see.

Downtown is a real blast these days. I go as often as I can.

There are some real gut-busters to eat Downtown. If you don’t know what that is, you must follow along the next time I go Downtown.

It is a lot more fun to go Downtown when I’m in a crowd. The bigger the dive, the better the times, I always say. Seriously, I had a great time in that place.

A new casino opens? I’ll be there and take you with me.

If Alice in Chains comes to town then I’ll sneak in my camera and take you there too. There are a lot of very talented people who come to this town and I try to get there as often as I can.

Ahh, the food. There are many delicious places to eat. Sure, the waiters look at me weird for taking photos of my food before I eat it, but screw them. Most of the time they will let me take photos of them too.

These short ribs were the BEST. I found them at a coffee house of all places. Awesome. Just awesome.

I caught this kid posing with an M&M for her mom. It is amazing what you might see just walking down the strip here. The shops on the strip tend to be over the top, to say the least. At the M&M store you can even watch a 3D movie.

Ohhh, there is good shopping here. All the big names have stores here and some little cute places too. So much to buy!

I’m not into Ferraris, but maybe you are, so here is a shot. Yeah, you can buy one right on the strip. I guess that is because you never know, you might get a flat tire on your car driving down the strip and you can just walk over here and buy a Ferrari.

You can even pick up some gifts to take home for your boss!

And that bitch in the office who thinks she is so hot.

So, there ya have it. This is what I do. Join me on my next adventure. If you see me on the strip, be sure to say hello and ask me to take your photo to post here.