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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.

For those who never used the DC taxi system, this was the way it used to work:

Each part of the city was in a “zone”, and the amount of cab fare you paid depended on how many zones you travelled through.  A cab ride that crossed X amount of zones was $X, and a ride within a zone cost $X … each and every trip.  There were surcharges for rush hour trips, radio dispatches, etc … but for the most part, if you knew where you were going, you also knew exactly what the fare would be.

While the fare system worked for everyone who lived and worked within Zone 1, it could be unfair for those who lived on the edge of a zone.  For instance, at one point taking a cab from Adams Morgan to the Washington Hilton (1/4 mile) cost $7.60, while a ride from the Washington Hilton to the Capitol Building (3.5 miles) only cost $5.50.  It probably comes as little surprise that Congress gerrymandered the cab districts so that elected officials enjoyed the lowest rates.

In any event, even though the system had warts, I actually liked it.  I always lived in Zone 1 or Zone 2x, which meant that I rarely had to pay more than $10 for a cab ride.  This meant that using cabs as public transit was quite plausible even among the working class.  There is a reason that DC has the second lowest level of car ownership in the nation (after New York City) and the cab system certainly contributed to the ease of living in the city sans-car.  It was one of the reasons why I did not get a permanent license (I got a permit when I was a teen and let it expire) until I was 32 years old.  Cars were superfluous and had no practical use to me personally.  For less than the price of gas and parking fees, most core residents could be driven door-to-door.

Of course, the system was very far from perfect.  DC cabbies ran scams by intentionally driving through multiple zones, the cabs had questionable safety profiles, they tried to jam too many fares into a single cab, the drivers smelled like festering roadkill in the summer, they couldn’t speak English, and there were a myriad of other issues.  People complained about the system, and there were valid reasons to do so.

That being said, compared to Vegas where you are not allowed to hail a cab, where strip club and tunnel scams are the rule, and where perhaps 20% of drivers even know where they are going … my former hometown cab system was a wet dream.

In 2008, DC put meters in cabs, and I figured that was the last I would see of a non-metered system, but the Las Vegas Sun brings up an interesting idea:

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/jun/25/zoned-pricing-strip-could-help-taxicab-authority-e/

What the article basically says is that Las Vegas is considering taxicab reforms at the end of this month, and the article’s author is advocating a zone fare system for our own taxicab service.

Frankly, I think it is an idea that has merit.

I’ve taken a lot of cabs in a lot of cities, and in my opinion, nobody runs more scams than do the drivers here in Las Vegas.  It got so bad that about a year ago, I more or less stopped taking cabs altogether.

Why?

Because I just got tired of confrontation.

I got sick and tired of getting in a cab at the Flamingo, and having the driver take a right on Paradise with the explanation “there is construction in front of the Convention Center.”  I got tired of helplessly sitting in the back as the driver drove to Tropicana, hung a left, hung another left on Swenson, and then looped back to Rexville before saying “that will be $21″.  I got tired of arguing with him at the end of the ride.

Driver: “You’ll pay the meter or I will call the police.”
Me: “Would you like to use my phone to call them?”
Driver: “What?”
Me: “You and I both know that you aren’t calling the police, you can take this ten dollars or I can call the Taxicab Authority.  They’re number 7 on my speed dial.  Hurry up and decide before I change my mind and give you nothing.”

Of course, they always took the ten bucks.

I did get paranoid that they would come back and shoot me when I was least expecting it, though.  It’s not good to piss people off directly in front of your home.

When something like the above didn’t happen, the driver would often pull the “ooops, I forgot to turn on my meter” trick.  In these cases, I legally owed the driver nothing, and I gave them a similar “take it or leave it” proposition at the end of the ride.  Even though I knew I was being scammed, I was always fair with what I offered.  I was aware that they were under the gun from their slave owners back at the cab barn, and I tried to be a good guy by giving them a legitimate fare for a legitimate ride, but some of their behavior was getting downright bizarre.  In my opinion, stimulant use was becoming more rampant to allow the drivers to work longer hours without fatigue.  I say this because I was threatened more than once by drivers with pupils the size of basketballs who had difficulty stringing two coherent sentences together.

Las Vegas Taxicab on The Strip

Las Vegas Taxicab on The Strip

Las Vegas Taxicab on The Strip

Therefore, in early 2009, I more or less declared the Vegas cab system unusable as urban transit.  I’ve taken only a few rides since then, and as best as I can remember, none of those have been in 2010.

When I first moved here, only about 20-30% of my rides were scams.  By the time 2009 rolled around, that number jumped to a solid 80%.

The odd thing about it all was that even when I informed them that I was a local, it really did not dissuade them at all from pulling the scam.  Methamphetamine is one hell of a drug.

“Hey Rex, I come to Vegas all the time and I never get scammed by cabbies.”

If you come to Vegas all the time, and you take cabs, then you absolutely do get scammed.  You probably just don’t realize it.  If I didn’t live here, and didn’t learn these streets like the back of my hand, I would not know that I was getting scammed most of the time.  The drivers are pretty good at selling the lie.  “There’s construction up there”, “a convention is letting out” over here … they are pretty goddamn convincing, and who is the average person not to trust a professional driver’s advice?

It’s kind of like playing 6:5 Blackjack.  Most people go home after three days none the wiser that they have been ripped off.  They assume that the house is giving them a good game.  After all, this is Las Vegas, not some Indian casino on the outskirts of Bumbletwat, Iowa.  They aren’t looking for scams.  If I only made one trip a year to Vegas, perhaps I would not notice the skim either.

I do generally know the fastest way to get from point A to point B in this town, however, and I’m also aware that … despite what the cabbies tell me … the fastest route is not always under construction.

Anyway, on June 29th, the Taxicab Authority will meet to try to find solutions to the widespread practice of long-hauling, and in my opinion, it’s long overdue.

I’m not sure if a zone system would work here, but I know one thing for sure.

The status-quo is no longer feasible.

Moulin Rouge Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas

Moulin Rouge Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas

Earlier this week, approval was given to destroy what is left of the somewhat mysterious property, and the lot on which it sits is expected to be cleared shortly.

As much as I would love to regale you with anecdotes about my experiences at this property, I’ve obviously never been inside of the place.  Hell, even though I am surrounded by old-timers in this neighborhood, not a single one of them has a tale about visiting the Moulin Rouge.  The only thing I know about the place is what I have read online, and even that is not a whole hell of a lot.  There is so little known about the casino that it’s kind of spooky.

Last year, a fire raged through the property, and I was one of the first people to arrive on the scene. I saw smoke begin to billow as I was driving east on Fremont Street, and I followed the plumes and captured what was perhaps the beginning of the end for the structure.  As you can imagine, rumor around town was that the fire was intentionally started by the owners of the property, and this is probably still the prevailing belief, but it is just a rumor.

(Moulin Rouge: Interview with a Resident)

Until last year, I did not know much about the Moulin Rouge (I still don’t), but the little that I did learn fascinates me.

First of all, the Moulin Rouge was the nation’s first integrated hotel and casino.  All of the other hotels in Las Vegas were off-limits to black people unless they were workers in the hotels.

Second, and most interesting, even though it has been standing for over 50 years, it was only open for a few months.  The Moulin Rouge opened in May of ’55, closed in November of ’55, and declared bankruptcy in December of ’55.  With the exception of a one-off event in 1960, the place has been closed ever since.  I guess the town wasn’t prepared to embrace diversity.

Lastly, word has it that our very own mayor, Oscar Goodman, celebrated his 78th birthday at the Moulin Rouge one short month before it declared bankruptcy.  (98er disclaimer:  It was a joke.  A joke about Oscar Goodman being old.)

“Dear Vegas Rex,

You said that Oscar Goodman celebrated his 78th birthday at the Moulin Rouge in 1955 but you lied because Oscar Goodman was born in 1939 and I love Oscar and don’t think you should make fun of him since you’re just jealous and you think you’re being funny but you are not funny at all Ellen DeGeneres is funny but not you because you never tell knock knock jokes and I’m never going to read you again because my wife says you’re sexist and you probably have a small dick and I am smarter than you because I graduated eighth in my class at Devry University and why can’t you be more like Jane Austen now there was a writer who really knew her stuff and she didn’t need to resort to using profanity to get her point across and watch your back Vegas Rex because next time I see you I WILL CUT YOU!”

Seriously, if Steve Wynn sends me the above email one more time, he’s going to have a lawsuit on his hands.   (98er disclaimer:  Steve Wynn doesn’t really email … never mind.)

West Las Vegas - Housing Projects

West Las Vegas - Housing Projects

West Las Vegas - Housing Projects

In any event, I stocked up on the last photos I will ever be able to take of the ill-fated property, and then drove home through the surprisingly attractive housing projects of West Las Vegas.  If you have any desire for some parting memorabilia from this iconic property shrouded in mystery (I think photos are all you get at this point), obtain them while you still can.  The last call has been sounded.

Moulin Rouge Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas

Rest in peace Moulin Rouge.

We hardly knew ye.

Now, this entire time, I noticed that a security guard had been walking behind the iPerson … following him by about 10 paces. I really didn’t think anything of it, though. Just as I was getting ready to ask iDude to pose so I could get a shot of him with the phone, the guard caught up to him and bellowed “Are you leaving??!!!”.

“Yes”, said the iPerson, in a completely calm and collected manner. He then turned away from me and began briskly walking toward the exit.

“Good!”, said the guard, “I don’t want you in the mall!”

The iPerson looked back and seemed confused, and his kids seemed confused, but he continued walking toward the exit. He didn’t exchange words with the guard, he seemed genuinely taken aback. As the family walked on, the guard then stalked … yes … STALKED the family through the mall. He walked closely behind them, circled them, and began talking into his walkie-talkie. I’m not sure exactly what he was saying, all I heard was the word “disorderly” at one point.

The problem is, the iPerson was not being disorderly. At all. The guard was also Hispanic, so it clearly wasn’t a racial thing.

Here is a man with his young daughter and young son making their way back to their car, and a guard was following him and trying to bait him into reacting to verbal abuse. The guard’s mannerisms and aggression were completely bizarre, and they were posing a clear and present threat to the family. If the iPerson had clocked him into next week, it would have been completely justified and I would have testified before a jury that it was self-defense. There were three uniformed Metro PD officers nearby, and this is the main reason I kept my distance. iDude was alright with me, but I didn’t know him well enough to get shot in the head by Metro.

To summarize, a Fashion Show Mall guard waited until a guy was 100′ from the Apple Store, accosted him and his children when they were doing nothing but walking to their car and grinning over their new phone, and the guard overtly tried to provoke an attack by the customer.

Seriously, how big of a pussy do you have to be to try and bully a man in front of his kids?

And for what? For the high crime of celebrating his iPhone purchase?

All the man did was cheer and do a happy dance in front of the Apple Store. What the F**K is wrong with that? Why was this not a good thing?

The guard’s behavior was just so … creepy.

Remember, this guard is the guy who is protecting you from “terrorists”. This guard is the guy who almost certainly takes the “See Something, Say Something” program too seriously. This guy also proves everything I have been telling people for the past several years:

Our security personnel, from full-time law enforcement to lowly mall security guard are out of control. Completely and utterly out of control. They are perpetually looking for a fight, an altercation, an excuse to hurt someone … and more and more often, they are finding it. Over the weeks here, we have had a couple of officer-involved shootings against unarmed men. Now, it seems that the rent-a-cops are getting in on the action.

Imagine, if the police department refuses to hire smart people because they might get bored, how f**king stupid does a security guard have to be in order to get the job? These people aren’t 98ers, they are 75ers, and they are in charge of you. They can detain you, lock you in a cage, shoot you, and when it comes time to tell your side of the story, a jury of fellow 75ers will decide who was right and who was wrong.

Fashion Show Mall Security Guard

Fashion Show Mall Security Guard

The guard in this photo has no business working any kind of “security” job, anywhere, at any time, and he should almost certainly not be allowed near any environment in which kids are present. Judging from what I saw yesterday, I have zero doubt that this man is a predator. Pure and simple. What I witnessed was a disgrace and affront to any rational person. In my opinion, the Fashion Show Mall is sitting on a ticking time bomb by allowing this man to stay on the job, and last but not least … it’s a pretty shitty way to treat a customer.

Before someone chimes in with “there are always a few bad apples”, I must say that these situations cannot be exceptions to the rule. I see this kind of guard behavior all the time, all over town. Hell, I had a cop yelling at me while I was losing consciousness on the way to the ER. I had a guard go off on me at the Strat when I asked for directions. Officers were dicks when I tried to point them toward an unconscious man. I’ve never had a positive experience with any of these guys.

I think it’s pretty clear that Las Vegas is a place which appeals to stalkers, predators, and those of unstable personality … and it’s also very obvious that it is these very people who are most drawn to “security” positions. It’s a problem, and in my honest opinion, it’s getting worse by the year. Las Vegas is a dangerous place, and the problem is exacerbated by our wolves dressing in sheep’s clothing.

Anyway, the iPhone 4 is officially here, and iPeople all over town are rejoicing.

Las Vegas Fashion Show Mall Apple Store

If you got yours, congratulations.

If not, may I suggest an Android?

We can make video calls from anywhere, we can hold our phones with our left hands, we can actually use our wireless internet connections, and best of all … our app store has boobs.

Think different.

Read: Happy iDay Part 1 (Part 1/2)

Of course, yours truly went over to Fashion Show Mall specifically to get pictures of the event.

Why?

Because I needed stock photos of an iPhone launch. As any regular reader is well-aware, I have an obsessive policy of only using photos that belong to me, and after looking through my stash, I realized that I didn’t have any iLaunch pictures. As someone who ridicules Apple on a frequent basis, this could not stand. At some point, I’m going to need to photoshop a crowd of Heaven’s Gate cult members standing in front of an Apple Store, and I need some kind of photographic footage to start with. Yesterday was my opportunity to get that footage.

I arrived at Fashion Show around 9:30am, and I immediately began laughing. I’m not trying to be rude, but I’m sorry, watching iPeople queue up in these kind of numbers just reminds me of what a silly animal the human really is.

Line for the iPhone 4.0 at Apple Store in Fashion Show Mall

I’ve been on this planet for a very, very long time. Almost 42 years. In that time, I’ve never willingly stood in line for more than 20 minutes unless I absolutely had to (bank, post office, DMV) or unless it was completely unexpected (“sorry, the ticket machine just crashed”). The iPerson mentality is something that I can only make sense of through a strict understanding of human psychology – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_mentality.

Don’t get me wrong, I was excited about getting my EVO (I even woke up a little early), but I didn’t pre-order it, it took me a grand total of 20 minutes in the store to get it, and I got it to replace my BlackBerry which was no longer suitable for “blogging”. Also, as excited as I have been about the Android platform, I did not get my first Android phone until June of 2010. This is not exactly what you would call early-adoption.

Sure, I get as excited about technology in general as anyone else, but it’s for highly-personal reasons. Popularity has never been an issue. I got the first wireless “internet PDA” ever sold commercially, and I was the only person, and I mean the ONLY person I knew who owned one. For the entire time that I carried that device, I never saw another Palm VII in the wild. I knew they existed, but I never made contact with the people who owned them. I never got looks of envy when I carried it either, instead, I got looks of “what a F’ing dork”.

This is somewhat different from what was going on yesterday at Fashion Show Mall. It was a 100% popularity contest. Honestly, guys, look at these pictures and ask yourselves how the folks here are “thinking different”. How can they even use the phrase without feeling like a smacked ass? They are penned up like cattle as they wait hopefully to get picked for digital dodgeball.

Line for the iPhone 4.0 at Apple Store in Fashion Show Mall

“But Rex, maybe they have a use for the iPhone. The 3GS is obsolete now.”

Maybe, but I doubt it.

One day last week, I forgot to turn on the 4G radio on my EVO. When I realized my mistake the next morning, I scrambled to Sprint’s website to make sure that I had not eaten through my 5GB 3G allotment, and I was relieved to see that I had “only” used 738MB of 3G data. In one day. For those of you without a calculator handy, by the end of the month, this would put me at 22GB of wireless data. 11 times what AT&T gives you per month. AT&T says that the “average iPhone user” only consumes 200MB per month, or roughly one third of what I consume in a day.

Honestly, I’m beginning to see why you iPeople don’t need real multitasking. It’s completely unnecessary for you. Most of you iPhone users out there barely do one thing, much less two or more. This is also why your battery life is so stellar. If I only pulled out my iPhone in a gay bar to impress the other men, mine would last 5 days on a single charge too.

Oh, and about that 5GB that Sprint gives me on 3G. Well, apparently that is now unlimited too with my “premium data package”. Not that I’ll use it. People who actually use their phones instead of sitting around playing with farting noise apps need a faster connection with a higher limit than AT&T offers.

Enjoy your whopping two gigs you fruitcakes. I hope the new iPhone is powerful enough to process that whopping amount of data. May I interest you in a pocket calculator that only displays two digits? I’ll slap an Apple sticker on it so people will still pay attention to you in Starbucks.

I digress. (pansies)

The morning was quite uneventful until “it” happened, and by “it”, I mean the most pathetic example of “security” I have ever seen in all of my years on this planet.

As I was getting ready to leave the mall and head back to my car, a man with his two children in-tow emerged from the Apple Store and he let out a loud “YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!”.

He did a little dance, held up his phone to the people in line, and let out a bunch of “woo-hoos” and “yeahs” that let the world know that he was excited.

Finally!

The only person on the first floor of the mall who didn’t act like a Stepford wife standing in line to get his pill.

This was the first time all day that I had seen an iPerson emote, and I thought it was brilliant. Almost everyone else in the crowd just stood with crossed arms, stoic and bored looking. I swear to god, despite their pierced lips and hipper-than-thou attitude … iPeople are a pretty boring group of metrosexuals.

This guy who came out of the store, however, was a real breath of fresh air. I enjoyed his enthusiasm. His visible elation was funny, entertaining, and if I had been a person standing in line, it would have definitely stoked my enthusiasm. I stood near the entrance to Nordstrom and watched the iGuy cheer for about 15 seconds, and when he was done, I gave him some well-earned applause. The other iPeople, however, continued to stare blankly like a deer caught in headlights. It was like they were looking around waiting for someone else to laugh, lest they be the first one.

Can you imagine … being the first one in line to laugh? Good god, think of the risk. I mean, what if no other iPerson laughed after you did? What would they think?

Seriously, sometimes I feel bad for iPeople. I really do. They’ve no idea how to react to what life throws at them unless they are given explicit instructions by a herd leader in a black turtleneck with a scavenged liver.

Read: Happy iDay Part 2 (Part 2/2)

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/jun/22/12-billion-fontainebleau-construction-permits-pull/

Some $1.2 billion in construction permits were pulled for the idled Fontainebleau casino resort on the Las Vegas Strip this month — but no one is saying if that means construction will actually resume anytime soon.

Clark County Development Services, the county office that tracks the issuance of building permits, reported last week that a company that acquired the Fontainebleau property on the Strip pulled 47 permits for projects at the development’s 2777 Las Vegas Blvd. South address.

But county officials said today this may be just a procedural effort … (snip) …

All the permits were issued June 10 and the total value of all 47 permits exceeds $1.2 billion.

Representatives of Icahn Enterprises and Taylor International did not return calls clarifying whether there are any plans to resume construction at Fontainebleau … (click the article link to read more)

As we are all aware, Carl “Yes” Icahn acquired the F’ingBlew in January, and construction on the property has been idle since that time.  According to the above article, however, the pulled permits may actually be counterintuitive to the true intentions of the owner.  Since permits are only good for 6 months, and building code requirement changes are imminent, this could mean that new applications are in the works.

Or maybe not.

I read the article three times, and frankly, it was less than clear as to what the true probabilities for either scenario were.

Even though the article is far from conclusive, I personally find the prospect that things might restart to be quite heartening.  I’ve been following and photographing with great interest in the FBlue since it was a mere stump, and I was extremely disappointed when the project went belly-up.

Fontainebleau Las Vegas

Fontainebleau Las Vegas

Fontainebleau Las Vegas

The FBlue is an omnipresent fixture in Rexville, looming in the near-background of every home and business in the area, and it probably goes without saying that we all expected it to have been finished by now.  In a very real way, the place was going to be our City Center.

The consensus among my own neighbors now is that Icahn is merely going to use the place as a pawn in his larger empire, and that it will be many years until anyone buys it with the intent of turning it into a fully-functional property.  This is an opinion I share.

I think that for the foreseeable future, the property will be a plastic cube in a game of Monopoly played by wealthy old men with gigantic prostates and fake teeth, but I hope to be proven wrong.

Speaking of Rexville developments (or the lack thereof), I just realized that I have yet to see ANY progress on the upcoming Aspen Holdings project.

For those of you who do not remember, the corner of Sahara and Las Vegas Boulevard was supposed to be the site of a new “Times Square”-themed casino, and that casino was scheduled to open in the fall of 2010 (a few months from now).  I passed the intersection earlier today, and believe me when I tell you, it looks exactly the same as it did this time last year.  I do not see any hint of the 547′ LED sign that was proposed for the site.

Northeast Corner of Sahara Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard

Now, I’m no construction expert, but my guess is that if they have yet to start building, then the chances of a fall opening are pretty slim.  My money is on the Times Square casino being more vaporware, but once again, I would be thrilled to be proven wrong.

Anyway, according to the mainstream press (which is 70%+ accurate), the Fontainebleau may or may not be resumed at some point in the future.

This may or may not be good news.

In 2010 Las Vegas, this is about as definitive as things get.

I had my ride drop me off in front of the Mirage, and I then headed north and tried to enter Gilley’s from the outside.

I soon realized the error of my ways.

To call the pedestrian situation in front of TI a “logistical nightmare” would be kind.  Calling it a clusterf**k would denigrate the beautiful act of making love to clusters.  Frankly, I don’t know what to call the situation other than a “complete and unadulterated mess”.

Sidewalk Crowd in front of Gilley's at TI

Sidewalk Crowd in front of Gilley's at TI

If you try to reach Gilley’s by walking north from the most populated portion of The Strip, you will quickly realize what a salmon feels like when it is trying to swim upstream.  At night, the TI plankbridge flows one-way, and that way is south.  This doesn’t sound like it should be a big deal, but as you can see from the photos … it is.  Gilley’s is segregated from all northbound pedestrian traffic by a rope, and this results in a dense, concentrated mosh of people directly in front of the bar which makes external entry the most monumental pain in the ass imaginable.  Yes, yes, that’s what she said.

After walking against the grain for 5 minutes, and smashing head-first into numerous people, I hopped over the rope and entered Gilley’s from the casino.

When I finally got inside, things finally mellowed out.

Guys in cowboy hats were standing around drinking beers, random tourists were warbling out karaoke tunes, and of course, a mechanical bull was tossing people around like ragdolls.  Strangely, there was also a lady inside with her child in-tow … cue Jeff Foxworthy “you might be a redneck” joke.

Inside Gilley's at TI

Anyway, I ordered a light beer, walked around, and took in the scenery.  I didn’t know what I was looking for in particular, but I will say this, watching people get tossed from a mechanical bull is a great way to make the time fly.

At one point, I pulled out my camera to record the action, and I captured one guy getting thrown feet-over-head into the side barrier:

That had to hurt.  At least a little bit.

I’ve ridden a mechanical bull once in my life, and that was in Mexico when I was far younger.  I was thrown several times, but I kept getting back on because I had no problem taking the abuse.  These days, however, at 41 years old, 6’3″ and 190lbs, I assume that being thrown from a bull in such a manner would be little more than suicide.  For both myself and the robobull.

After watching the bull riders get hammered, I turned my attention to the karaoke stage.

Now, I took this second video with my EVO, and I have to be brutally honest and concede a major point — The EVO video camera is almost useless indoors in dim light.  It’s not completely useless, but it’s pretty damn close.  The irony is that during the daytime, the EVO camcorder is remarkably good.  I would go so far as to call it excellent.

The difference between the camera at night and during the day, however, is like, uh … night and day.  It’s hard to believe that a great camera can go to complete shit simply by moving indoors.  Inexplicably, when the video goes to hell, the audio follows suit.  I’m not sure if the compression scheme is increased under stress or what, but it’s pretty bad.

That being said, I did the best I could to capture this guy doing a karaoke rendition of “Cowboy” by Kid Rock, but you are going to have to make judicious use of your imagination to hear the words:

I did find it admirable that the gentleman knew enough of the song to go off-script and sing “paint his wife white” and “my only words of wisdom are just suck my dick”.  Oddly enough, the guy didn’t seem all that familiar with the rest of the lyrics, but he shouted those two lines perfectly.  At least the man has priorities.

In general, Karaoke makes my ears bleed, but I’m warming up to it as I age.  You have to give props to people who get in front of an audience and belt out tunes when they are clearly aware that they cannot sing.  It’s for this reason that I have some respect for Ke$ha.

In any event, I spent a solid hour talking to some of the tourists at the bar, getting my drink on, and just generally enjoying the atmosphere.  I did not, however, ride the bull or sing to the crowd.  I eventually got a text message that my party had arrived, and my time in Gilley’s was up.  I grabbed a few more quick shots and headed into the abyss of Treasure Island on my way to the Mirage tram.

Even though it’s not a place that fits my personality perfectly, I can see myself using Gilley’s as a casual hangout more often in the coming years.  I’m not a huge fan of the faux-cowboy thing, but the pretense factor is low, douchebags are almost non-existent, and the waitresses were quite attractive and personable.  I give it a solid B+.

Gilley's Waitress

The genius urban planning in front of Treasure Island, however, receives a massive fail.

From http://www.8newsnow.com/Global/story.asp?S=12686429 (not the Review-Journal):

Las Vegas law enforcement agencies are launching a new effort aimed at encouraging regular citizens to watch out for suspicious activity.

The program is called “See Something, Say Something”.  The program is designed to make average citizens the eyes and ears of law enforcement when officers aren’t around.

Authorities say a prime example of how well that can work is the attempted attack on Times Square in New York City.  Faisal Shahzad is accused of trying to rig a car bomb in the crowded New York City plaza. A street vendor, however, spotted smoke coming from the vehicle and reported it to authorities. Shahzad on Monday pleaded guilty to 10 terrorism and weapons counts.

To summarize — emboldened by one man’s reporting of a smoking vehicle, Las Vegas law enforcement is beginning a program which will encourage other people to report smoking vehicles.  Ostensibly, Las Vegans are so stupid that they would not think to report a smoking vehicle without a “program” in place.

LV Resident 1: “Hey man, that car over there is smoking, see it, the one that has ‘Death to Zionist Scum’ spray-painted on the side.  What should we do?”
LV Resident 2: “I dunno.  Should we go over and pet the car, you know … like a dog?”
LV Resident 1: “Well, nobody ever told me what to do in this situation, so yes, I think we should go over and pet the car like a dog.”

Seriously, this “program” is so ridiculous and insulting that I’m really not sure whether to laugh or cry.

More than anything, however, this program is downright frightening.  It’s very scary.

Is it “terrorists” that I am afraid of?

No.

What causes me the greatest distress in life is the knowledge that I am surrounded by, governed by, and policed by 98ers.

What’s a 98er?

Chances are, it’s you.  Generic “you”, not specific “you”.

I call people of average intellect “98ers” because the IQ of the average U.S. resident is 98.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations

“I suppose you don’t call yourself a 98er, Rex.  What makes you think you are smarter than everyone else?”

I’ll tell you what makes me think this.

Numbers.

I won’t go into detail about the hows and whys (it involved educational program opportunities), but twice, I was IQ tested as a child.

The results showed that I was, indeed, not smarter than everyone else.  I was, however, smarter than the vast majority of people.  I’ve no desire to getting into specific dick-measuring contests with Mensa members, but suffice to say that, if you are reading this, the chance of you being more intelligent than myself is very low.

As a matter of fact, if you have the IQ of an average American citizen, you are significantly less intelligent than I.  Running strictly off the numbers, if you have a dead-center average American IQ, then you are intellectually closer to a retarded person than you are to me.  Me talking to a person of average intellect is like an average person talking to someone with an IQ of about 50.  For those who are unaware, an IQ of 50 puts someone smack on the border of “imbecile” (IQ of 25-50) and “moron” (IQ of 51-70).

Fremont Street Crowd

When I tell people that the movie Idiocracy is a documentary, they tend to roll their eyes and say something like “quoting Idiocracy is so cliche’”.  The problem is, that movie really is the way the world seems to me sometimes.  Especially in Las Vegas where I have no doubt that the average intellect is in the 60′s … 70′s at absolute best.

“Rex, I don’t think the source you quoted was able to estimate IQ’s with a great deal of accuracy.”

First of all, the quoted study is actually quite generous.  A different study which expands the data by 4 times found that the average human IQ is actually closer to 90.  Second of all, my own results were multiple standard deviations higher than the average in the linked study, so regardless of what the “accurate” average is, I’m still substantially above it.

“But Rex, IQ tests are culturally biased and are thus irrelevant.”

This is absolutely true to some extent, but the bias of IQ tests almost always results in someone getting a lower score than they would otherwise get on a “culturally correct” test.  While culturally biased IQ tests will almost surely result in “false negatives” for idiots, they are very unlikely to result in false positives for the top percentile.

What this means is that it is highly unlikely that I am really an idiot who just happened to get lucky by scoring well on a couple of culturally-biased IQ tests.  The tests results of an Aborigine are probably not terribly accurate, but that of a white Irish-half-Jew-American born and raised on the east coast of the USA is probably in the ballpark.

Anyway, instead of going around swinging IQ results around like a baseball bat in everyday life, I tend to use them to help me make sense of the world around me.  Understanding the very large discrepancy between myself and the overwhelming majority of people I interact with helps me cope.

For instance, when I was in Best Buy this weekend, I tried to explain to the cashier that the “extended warranty” she was trying to sell me for a $140 disk drive did not make mathematical sense.  I did not get angry at her when she persisted that I would be crazy not to buy it.  I mean, I started to get agitated, but then I forced myself to remember “She has no idea what you are talking about.  She’s a 98er.  She’s been trained like a seal.  There is no possible way that she can process the information you are giving her.  It would be like scolding your dog for not learning calculus.”  It sounds mean, but the only way I can understand certain human behavior is by equating it with other animal behavior that I can rationalize.

Instead of blowing up, I just kept repeating “no, but thank you”, until she relented on her 50th attempt.

Now, if all of the above angers or offends you, please do not shoot the messenger.  I did not make any of this so.  Frankly, I really, really, really wish that all of this were not the case.  I very desperately want the people around me to be smarter.  The world would be a better place.  I didn’t ask to be born, and I’m sure I would be a far happier person had I popped out a 98er.

I could cheer my favorite sports team with euphoric abandon, declare America #1 with absolute certainty, and best of all … I could finally buy an iPad.

I don’t see the world differently because I try to see it differently, I see the world differently because I am different … and lest you think this is some kind of brag-fest, honestly, I hate the way I am.

As it is, I stress about everything.  From major shit like world hunger to minor things like 6:5 Blackjack, everything torments me.  I can’t really enjoy anything, it’s just think, think, think, think, think.  It’s a miserable fucking existence that I would not wish on Steve Wynn.  Well, maybe Steve Wynn, but definitely not Oscar Goodman.  Okay, maybe Oscar Goodman too, but definitely, definitely not Carrot Top.

“So, Rex, are you calling me stupid?”

You specifically?  Actually … probably not.

If you read this blog, chances are that your intelligence is higher than average.

“What a load of self-serving shit, Rex.  Basically, if we read you, we’re smart, but if we read everyone else, we’re dumb.  How convenient.  Way to manipulate the audience.  Nice try, anal boy!”

I don’t blame you for thinking this one bit.  If someone said the same thing to me, I would tell them to go F themselves in their elitist ass.

I am however, being 100% honest.

You see, there are several theories which hold that sarcasm is generally a humor enjoyed by those with higher intelligence levels.  This is why I get so many blank stares from store clerks and random people on a day-to-day basis when I try to make sarcastic jokes.  Some of it is cultural (Asians are notoriously bad at understanding sarcasm because they are not exposed to it), but sarcasm requires a certain amount of non-linear thinking that transcends the basal “what you hear is what you get” instinct.  The less cognitively aware a person is, the less likely they will get layered levels of sarcasm.

Also, after some informal polling of my own, it appears that I have a statistically significant number of forum readers who are atheists (who are probably also blog readers).  Religion, patriotism, excessive optimism, belief in intangibles such as “bad words”, belief in the innate benevolence of “authority”, and adherence to “common knowledge” without question is generally the domain of the 98er.  As a matter of fact, the things I listed are the main instruments with which 98ers are controlled.

From my own observations, my longtime readers tend to be more skeptical of official sources, skew toward the cynical, and “bad words” are REALLY not an issue for them.  The “happy happy joy joy Vegas Baby!” crowd almost always refers to my readers as miserable, cranky, and negative– and I know that it’s meant as an insult, but the irony is that I consider it a compliment to my readers/participants.  When 98ers are yelling at your people for not being more like 98ers … you should count yourself fortunate, as I do.  I’m surrounded by 98ers in the real world, and I’m not sure that I want this to be the case online as well.

To summarize again, if you are reading my blog, then you are not an idiot.  You’re only an idiot if you read other blogs.  That’s my position, and I’m sticking to it.

Anyway, what was my point in this 1,500 word diatribe?

My point is that I am extremely scared of programs such as the LVMPD’s “See Something, Say Something” program.  It is a program being administered by 98ers for 98ers, and this will surely lead not just to a comedy of errors, but also outright abuses.

Hell, calling police officers “98ers” might even be optimistic.  At least one police department puts an intelligence cap on new hires because they have found that cops who get 27 or more questions correct (out of 50) are more likely to get bored, less likely to blindly obey orders, and are more likely to use common sense (such as escorting an unconscious person to the hospital).

I think we are all aware that people who blindly follow orders are of far-below-average intellect, and this tacit admission from one police department (I’m sure they aren’t the only ones who use this policy) merely confirms what we already knew.  Customer service agents, bank tellers, and security guards are sometimes held to the same “no smart people need apply” standard.

This being noted, when 98ers are turned into junior detectives by sub-98ers, I don’t think society gets safer, I think it gets more dangerous.

“Terrorism” is the new religion for the 21st Century, and make no mistake about it, human evolution is not that far removed from the Salem Witch Hunts.  We are still basically the same animal now that we were then.  When you instruct the 98ers of the world to go forth and look for terrorists, I promise you one thing:

They will find them.

Usually in places that they do not exist.

All across the country, photographers are being detained because of “terrorism”, people are being disallowed to gamble online because of “terrorism”, and the same reason is being used for all sorts of intellectually-deficient policies and practices.

When a 98er looks for a witch, a 98er will find a witch, and the other 98ers will cheer as that witch is burned at the stake.   If it’s later found out that the witch was not a witch at all, this will not deter the 98er.  They’ll find another witch.  And another.  And another, because goddammit … 9/11 changed everything.

I’ve seen the true instruments of terror, and those people which strike the most fear into my soul are the 98ers of the world.  Those who are convinced that there is a bogeyman behind every bush and a towel-headed monster under every bed.  These are the people who threaten the American way of life more than any camel-riding cave-dweller.  These, are the people who pose the greatest threat to your freedom.  “Regular citizens” have no business being deputized into de-facto Barney Fife’s.  They are not qualified.  They are just following the orders they are bombarded with on television.  They do not have the cognitive ability to distinguish fact from fiction.  This is a bad idea.

I’ve seen something, and I’m saying something.

Since the Trop has been without an all-you-can eat venue for awhile, I was somewhat heartened to learn last week that their new Italian restaurant, Bacio, was instituting a new weekend “brunch” buffet.  Of course, I had to try it, and yesterday I did exactly that.

Bacio Brunch Buffet at the Tropicana

Bacio Brunch Buffet at the Tropicana

Bacio Brunch Buffet at the Tropicana

Bacio Brunch Buffet at the Tropicana

The new Bacio buffet is somewhat interesting from a logistical perspective.  You are seated inside, but in order to get your food, you have to go back out of the front entrance to the exterior of the restaurant .  Of course, this is the reverse of how most buffets operate.  It reminded me a little bit of wearing one’s clothes backward, like Kriss-Kross circa 1993.

Don’t even act like you weren’t down with the Migetty Migetty Migetty Migetty Mack Daddy.

Whatever happened to those guys?  Are they still alive?  I mean, one minute they’re everywhere, the next minute … anyway ….

Aside from the curious setup, the food itself was actually good.

Myself and my special date arrived for the breakfast portion of the “brunch”, which meant that all of the food was standard early-morning classics.  Eggs, waffles, bacon, sausage, croissants, muffins, fruit … what more could you ask for in breakfast food?  My personal favorite serving was the scrambled eggs with feta cheese and tomatoes.  I crushed some apple-cured bacon into the eggs, and I was good to go.  For “desert”, I downed mini-waffles with vanilla syrup.

Bacio Brunch Buffet at the Tropicana

For ten bucks, it was hard to go wrong.

As a serial “sampler” and the most impatient person on the face of the earth, I still prefer buffets to sit down restaurants where I have to get someone’s attention for every little request.  I like the DIY setup of high-quality buffets, and I always get more than my money’s worth.  Besides, buffets are a Vegas tradition.

Both my hostess and my waiter were extraordinarily nice, and the experience was positive.  Unlike the MGM, Excalibur, and Luxor buffets surrounding it, the Bacio buffet is a very small, quiet, intimate buffet.  It’s perhaps the smallest one that I have ever seen.  This is not a bad thing if you want to avoid the crowds, waits, and hassles of mega-buffets.  It’s good to have options, and Bacio is a solid one for a “first meal of the day” experience.

After getting my fill of breakfast food, I went downstairs to hang out by the pool for a little while.

By the time I got water-side, it was about 11am and 90 degrees, but the pool was not crowded at all.  This is not surprising given that it was the weird time slot after most people check out and before most people check in, and it gave me an opportunity to walk around and check everything out from all angles without wading through people.

Now, I don’t know if it is just me, but the “new” Trop pool does not look appreciably different from the “old” Trop pool.  The new one has a “cleaner” layout, but if anything, I might actually prefer the old version just slightly.  The older one was a bit more “tropical”.  You have to realize, however, that I have spent an entire decade … the last 10 summers … lounging by the Tropicana pool, and when I develop a familiar favorite, I tend to resent any change.  Hell, I taught one of my kids to swim at the Tropicana pool.  That’s how familiar the place was to me.

"Old" Tropicana Pool on May 23, 2009 - Swim-up Blackjack

"New" Tropicana Pool on June 20, 2010 - Swim-up Blackjack

"New" Tropicana Pool on June 20, 2010 - Swim-up Blackjack

"Old" Tropicana Pool on May 23, 2009

"New" Tropicana Pool on June 20, 2010

"New" Tropicana Pool on June 20, 2010

"Old" Tropicana Pool on May 23, 2009

"Old" Tropicana Pool on May 23, 2009

"New" Tropicana Pool on June 20, 2010

"Old" Tropicana Pool on May 23, 2009

"New" Tropicana Pool on June 20, 2010

"New" Tropicana Pool on June 20, 2010

"New" Tropicana Pool on June 20, 2010 - Poolside Bar

"New" Tropicana Pool on June 20, 2010

The biggest thing I miss from the “old” pool is the swim-thru waterfall.  I really enjoyed it.  Swimming through it, under it, behind it.  Where I’m from (which happens to not be a rainforest), there just weren’t many waterfalls, and this was a favorite feature of mine.

The “new” Tropicana pool is not bad by any stretch of the imagination (like I said, it’s not that different), but in my opinion … it wasn’t broken to begin with.  When something is already nearly perfect, making changes to it is probably not the greatest of ideas.  I guess pool parties are the wave of the future, though, and my guess is that the Trop pool is being scored to accommodate more of a beach club atmosphere than an alt.favorite tropical paradise.

Given that it’s the Trop, I may very well try the new “Nikki Beach Club” to see if I can get down with it.  I mean, I’m a jet-set hip and gorgeous person. Right?

I guess we’ll see.

As if it were not obvious, I’m really trying to go above and beyond to like the new and improved Tropicana.  My loyalty is theirs to lose.

The garden areas of the pool courtyard are looking very nice, but of course, there is also a great deal of construction going on at the Trop from front to back.  Nobody has found a way to invisibly remodel a property yet.

"New" Tropicana Pool on June 20, 2010 - Garden Area

"New" Tropicana Pool on June 20, 2010 - Garden Area

Tropicana Under Construction - June 20, 2010

Tropicana Under Construction - June 20, 2010

Now for a little bit of bad news.

In my quest to solidify my Tropicana vs. Golden Nugget decision, I decided to call the Trop this weekend to inquire about booking a room.  In particular, I wanted to ask about resort fees.  I didn’t think they had one, but I wanted to double check.  As it turns out, they do have one.  The fee is lower than most, but it is there.

The reservation agent informed me that a fee of $7.99 would be added to all room rates, and when I asked what the fee included, she informed me that it included use of the phone, fax machine, fitness center, pool, and “parking”.

This was a relief, because if there is one thing I am sick and tired of, it’s paying for parking in Strip hotels.

I later did some online research to make sure I heard her correctly, and I found the following on the site:

Incidental charges: Tropicana charges a $7.99 per room, per night resort fee, which covers the cost of access to gym, two free drinks on property, unlimited local and 800 calls and use of the pool and jacuzzi. Tropicana charges a $5.50 baggage handling fee for all group arrivals. The hotel requires a credit card or a cash deposit for incidental charges. The resort fee listed above does not include tax. Some resorts also apply room tax to their resort fee.

As you can see, there is no official mention of parking as an amenity, but the fee does exist, along with a baggage handling fee for “groups”, although the word “groups” is not defined.

After hanging up with the Trop reservation line, I called the Golden Nugget to inquire about resort fees, and was told there were none.

This is a very compelling deciding factor for yours truly.  It’s not that I cannot afford resort fees, it’s that I despise them on principal because they are dishonest and they prevent a direct comparison of room rates from one property to the next.  Properties should be able to compete based on their advertised rates, and resort fees are a cheap ploy where the fine print taketh away what the big print giveth.  Frankly, I’m not 100% convinced that these fees are legal in the method they are being applied.  They seem to blatantly violate unfair and deceptive trade practice laws.  They are legal landmines, and I’d like to see them challenged at some point.

In any event, I’m ready to book the Nug but I’m holding off for just a bit longer.  There is still plenty of time between now and August for someone to surprise or disappointment me.  It happens all the time.  As soon as I book the Nugget, they’ll announce some kind of “running water” fee for all new check-ins, and shortly afterward the Trop will announce topless french maid service beginning in late July.

If there is one thing I can guarantee, it’s that whatever you hold to be true about any given property will change when you least expect it.  Also, a new contender may arise between now and then.

Anyway, it was an overall nice Sunday at the Tropicana.

For the duration of my visit, not a single person asked me for a cigarette, spare change, nor did they solicit me to take a picture or buy club passes.  I almost got dinged by the escalators by what appeared to be time share drones, however.  They tried to stop me, but I just kept walking.

If the Trop can get rid of those guys, I can overlook the waterfall and call it even.

“Can you spare any change?”

“Hey man, help me get a sandwich.”

This was not how I wanted my Saturday night to begin.

I’ve been having such a decent time on Fremont Street the past few weeks that I’ve come to take the positive vibe for granted.

Last night, however, the streak sort of came to an end.

I’m not sure if it was the heat, the booze, or a combination thereof, but last night on Fremont Street there were a few shouting matches, a few fisticuffs, and worst of all … a busload of panhandlers.

Literally.

A few weeks ago, someone emailed me with regards to the new influx of posers on LVB. The person informed me that the LAPD was cracking down on the posers along Hollywood Boulevard, and that it was getting too difficult for them to work the streets in LA. Instead of sticking around Hollywood, waiting to get busted for loitering, etc … these posers were hopping on buses to work the Las Vegas crowd.

I lived in Hollywood for a couple of years, and the posers and panhandlers were part of my every day existence. I wasn’t bothered by them … it was Hollywood. I would really expect nothing less.

Las Vegas, however, is different.

Vegas is a tourist destination that depends on an overall perception of safety, and it simply cannot afford the “seedy” perception that other municipalities can get away with. Although the posers have been here for a few months, this weekend, Las Vegas got its first huge influx of a new Hollywood demographic.

Street kids.

Fremont Street - Street Kids

Fremont Street - Street Kids

Fremont Street - Street Kids

If you think about it, this makes perfect sense, and I am surprised that it has taken this long.

The Hollywood Greyhound bus station is about 100′ from the corner of Hollywood & Cahuenga … an intersection which is also the epicenter of the LA runaway community. The Las Vegas Greyhound bus station, located adjacent to the Plaza Hotel, is about 100′ from the Fremont Street Experience. What this means is that Greyhound provides door-to-door service between Hollywood Boulevard and Fremont Street. All it takes is a cheap bus ticket and a 5 hour nap.

Las Vegas Greyhound Bus Station

Anyone who has ever lived in Hollywood is no doubt very familiar with the kids of Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards. These are kids from all over the country who leave abusive or broken homes (not all meet this criteria, but most do), hop the nearest Greyhound bus to L.A., and arrive to find the city to be nothing like they see on television or in the movies. They live on the streets for a few years, and eventually it becomes a lifestyle. This is why it’s not uncommon for some of these “kids” to be in their 20′s, and in some cases … even 30′s.

Frankly, on some levels, I can relate to this demographic, and I do have a soft spot for them.

I was the product of a violent and abusive home, and I more or less raised myself from the age of 8 years old, when my parents split. I usually had a roof over my head with my mother, and I often got money from family to buy food, basic necessities, and whatnot, but I was under very little supervision. I learned to take care of myself pretty quickly. I was never really what I would call “homeless” per-se, but there were times during my youth when I didn’t have a place to go for two or three day stretches.

During these episodes, I often made myself at home on the F train. Late at night, this was one of the least dangerous and least populated trains. None of the IRT trains were good for crashing. They had a harsher ride, and were typically more dirty than the IND stock.

My point in saying this is to illustrate that I don’t have anything against these kids. I understand them, and greatly empathize with them. I suppose I was one of them to some degree … with one notable exception.

I never, never, ever panhandled. When I needed fast money, I grabbed a bicycle, hit the streets, and worked my ass off for 12 hours per day making deliveries. Some of those deliveries were contracts put together by multi-million dollar corporations, and some of those deliveries were glaucoma remedies. Either way, I did what I had to do … so long as it did not involve touching anyone’s weiner or standing around begging for spare change.

I didn’t hassle anyone or interrupt anyone, and because of this, my sympathy was put to the test yesterday.

Panhandler: “You got a cigarette, man?”
Me: “Nope”
Panhandler: “You got some spare change?”
Me: “Sorry, no.”
Panhandler: “Fuck you then.”

I walked between the Plaza and the Las Vegas Club a few times, and variations of the above conversation played out each time. It wasn’t just me, though, anyone who ran the LVC gauntlet was fair game. As if this were not bad enough, two groups of kids got into fights while I was standing near the Golden Gate, and by the end of the night, one of the kids needed paramedics and an ambulance.

Las Vegas Club - Street Kids / Runaways

Fremont Street - Ambulance

Fremont Street - Ambulance

Fremont Street - Paramedics

Fremont Street - Paramedics

Fremont Street - Ambulance

While I completely understand that the scene in LA has gotten too hot, and while I also recognize that these folks depend on handouts in order to survive, I think hopping a bus to Las Vegas was a miscalculation on their part. They would have been better off heading to Berkley or Portland because believe me 100% when I tell you this:

The current situation is simply not going to work out.

The vibe that was going down on the west end of Fremont last night will not work here, nor should it. Hollywood is one thing. It’s part of the culture. Las Vegas cannot handle it.

Tourists from Minnesota will not put up with the hassle and … hell … now that I am in my 40′s, I don’t think I want to put up with the hassle either. Somebody is going to have to go, either the tourists or the runaways, because the Fremont Street-cum-Hollywood Boulevard thing is completely unsustainable.

Just when Fremont began getting its groove back. Just when the perception of Downtown safety was on the rise ……. this.

It’s not good.

Anyway, despite the general unpleasantness of the west side, the evening was not a complete bust. The Aerosmith Tribute band was quite good, the Binion’s craps pit was packed, and I even got a few hands in at the world’s most famous poker room. I also spent some time in the Plaza party pit, which is something that I do not do very often due to its location across the street from the action. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the talent at the Plaza, and I may put this venue into somewhat higher rotation going forward

In any event, the primary message of this article, to anyone who will listen, is that the Downtown must nip the street kid situation in the bud before it gets out of hand. It’s the wrong area at the wrong time.

I’m sure we all have sympathy for the kids, but you can’t just take a place over. It’s not fair to the people who own the casinos and are trying to make something happen, and it’s not fair to the tourists who are looking for a stress-free place to spend their hard earned vacation money. If this continues, it will be a real setback for the perceived increase in Downtown safety.

Fremont Street cannot let itself become Hollywood Boulevard East.

Not now.

Not when it has come this far.