High Culture Comes to Las Vegas
January 15, 2009
It can be very interesting having a Mayor who is an ex-mobster.
Some people make the claim that Oscar was not an actual mobster, but a mob lawyer.
They have a point. It’s unfair to sully the good name of the mob by implying that there was an attorney among them.
Godfather Oscar Goodman
Anyway …
There are currently plans to build a multi-million dollar Museum in Las Vegas.
Is it one of those cool museums with dinosaur fossils?
No.
How about one of those museums with fine art hanging on the walls?
No.
Sculptures? Everyone loves sculptures.
No.
Our museum will showcase people who shot other people execution-style, then lopped off their heads and buried them in midwestern cornfields.
Sweet!
None of that abstract art crap for us.
To be honest, abstract art never really did it for me anyway. More often than not it looks like someone ate four jumbo bags of Skittles, had explosive diarrhea, and hung the remains on a wall.
So I suppose a Mob Museum is as good an idea for a museum as any in our fair city.
Here’s the problem, though. The museum is going to cost $55 Million, and we don’t want to pay for it.
Luckily, here in the U.S., we have these cool things going on known as “bailouts”.
“Bailouts” basically represent the end of capitalism as we know it. Truth be told, we never had capitalism, but this year, we finally stopped pretending that we did.
These days, we just print fiat currency, give it away, and call it an “economic stimulus”.
Does it really “stimulate” the economy? Of course not. It does, however, sound much nicer than “We are printing a bunch of money and giving it away to whomever we damn well please.”
Another benefit of having an ex-mobster for a Mayor is that he has no shame. Our fearless leader walks around flanked by showgirls as he swills gin. The guy has been lobbying for a basketball team that nobody wants for the last 5 years.
Mayor Oscar Goodman and his showgirls
Obviously, such a guy is not going to pass up some of this cool “bailout” money.
Oscar actually wants this money to build the Mob Museum.
Oscar feels it is the key to the economic recovery of Las Vegas, and this is how he is selling the museum to the mafia on Capital Hill (sometimes known as “Congress”).
Frankly, I am going to have to disagree with Oscar.
With the adoption of broadband Internet, I have no idea why anyone would need to go to a brick-and-mortar museum ever again.
I mean, if I want to know something about a gangster, or want to see pictures of the cars or guns they used … I just pull up my search engine of choice and type in “mobster gun” and I can find out everything I want to know without leaving the comfort of my home.
In this decade, why would anyone build a museum?
Fine, maybe people want to see and touch the cars and guns in person, but what do you think the actual numbers are?
I’ll be straight with you, I don’t know anyone who comes to Las Vegas for the museums. Not a single person.
“You know, I would go to Las Vegas if they had a museum of some kind.”
Yeah, Oscar, people race to Las Vegas for the culture.
Another reason that a mob museum couldn’t work is because the museum would have no content.
As everyone knows, there’s no such thing as the mob.
At least that has been the standard line for years.
Look, along with Elvis and Sinatra, the mafia has been a staple of Las Vegas culture and mythology for the past few decades. The mob is interesting, and movies made about the subject of gangsters are almost guaranteed hits.
However, since the corporatization of Vegas 2.0, I think a large part of the interest in these old institutions is waning.
How many 20-somethings that come to Vegas to frolick in the Hard Rock Pool give a damn about Dean Martin and the Rat Pack anymore. Hell, how many of them even know what the Rat Pack is?
How many of them are aware of the mob connections, and how many of them come here for a history lesson?
As far as the bailout money is concerned, I simply do not understand how it is going to “revitalize” Downtown.
Oscar has a particularly bad record when it comes to “fixing” Downtown. One need only look at the Neonopolis and Fremont East debacles as recent examples of this.
Neonopolis
Fremont East
They were both pegged to save Downtown, and neither one helped the area in the slightest.
Will this Mob Museum be any different?
Probably not.
It’s going to be housed in an old Post Office building in a part of town that few people frequent.
Oscar Goodman has been quoted as saying “Everyone is going to see it”, but obviously that’s not true.
Only a small percentage of Las Vegas visitors have even seen the Fremont Street Experience, and I doubt they will be beating down the doors for a museum about mafia guys.
Of course, I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am.
There is one other reason that the museum probably won’t work.
Competition.
If people really want to see crimes being committed inside of a large building, all they have to do is walk inside the nearest Strip casino and see 6:5 Blackjack being dealt.
That’s far more criminal than anything the mafia has ever done.
Written by crazy gator on January 16, 2009 at 9:19 am
I might be one of the few who has traveled to your city just to visit the museums. I can be lost for hours at MOMA or lost for days at either the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the American Museum of Natural History. Thank you NYCRex for telling us about the future Mob Museum that will be coming to the city that really deserves it.
On a serious note the Atomic Testing Museum is worthwhile
Written by mrcdnvegas on January 16, 2009 at 12:11 pm
I agree that not many weekend visitors, and especially the 20 something crowd are not going to be interested in a museum. Of course to make it even worse putting it in the old post office location does not help either. That side of downtown scares the hell out me too.
That being said if you’re in town for a longer stay it might be of interest, providing they give you an armed escort to get from Fremont canopy to it.
Crazy Gator is right too. The Atomic Testing Museum is pretty good and worth the trip off the strip to see.